Dear Marion,

Finally an hiatus in my attention. I betook myself to the virtual
art gallery to look at Beth Namenwirth's paintings. Margaret came
along. She didn't know what to say, while I, hardly a surprise to
you, am never at a loss for words.  Many of the paintings are of
domestic or quasi-domestic scenes, in rooms, residential space
that is the realm of the interior decorator, whose services were
obviously dispensed with, - or were they?  In my mind, most
impressively associated with the interiors of houses is the work
of another Flemish artist, Jan Vermeer. Compare the bare barrenness
of Beth's domiciles with the tasteful luxury of Vermeer's interiors.
The architect in me was pleased figuratively by the sharp, clean
perspectives of Beth's geometric spaces; the psychologist in me
was challenged literally by the corresponding emptiness of the
spiritual space into which Beth has placed the woman whom she paints
over and over again, a girl whom you and I recognize to be the daughter
of Niko, like him, a child lost in a loveless world. Paintings not
nearly so soothing, but by the same token infinitely more truthful
than those of Vermeer. Emptiness of the spaces in which we live is
not (necessarily) to be deplored. I am reminded of Rilke's comment:

Dieses war dein, du, Künstler; diese drei
offenen Formen. Sieh, hier ist der Ausguss
der ersten: Raum um dein Gefühl; und da
aus jener zweiten schlag ich dir das Anschaun
das nichts begehrt, des großen Künstlers Anschaun;
und in der dritten, die du selbst zu früh
zerbrochen hast, da kaum der erste Schuss
bebender Speise aus des Herzens Weißglut
hineinfuhr -, war ein Tod von guter Arbeit
vertieft gebildet, jener eigne Tod,
der uns so nötig hat, weil wir ihn leben.
und dem wir nirgends naher sind als hier. 

About Beth's paintings, my father, as usual, would have said:
Das hat mit mir nichts zu tun.  My mother would have asked:
Wer will denn das alles wissen? Margrit would have found Beth's
pictures enchanting and would have sought one of them for her
graphics' collection so that she could consider Beth yet another
one of her collection of friends.

The Rilke quotation is (very) difficult and requires some explanation.
The lines are from the Requiem fuer Wolf Graf von Kalckreuth, a friend
of Rilke's who I believe was an artist, perhaps a sculptor, who 
committed suicide. Rilke, then a mere 33 years old, presumes to
counsel the deceased, as to what might have made life for him 
worthwhile. He cites three available forms: 1) space (emptiness)
in which to feel and live. 2) visual contemplation (Anschaun) without
desire, such as the (great) artist's, and 3) addressing the suicide:
the form which you yourself have shattered, before it received even
the first trembling batch of the heart's white-glowing passion, was
a death founded in honest work, such death which needs us so, because
we live it, and to which we're nowhere closer than right here.

I acknowledge that Rilke's smug and pious mysticism may not be at all
congenial to you. But reflecting on it will enlarge your horizon, 
which is what contemplating Beth Namenwirth's paintings did to mine.

Jochen