EXCERPTS:
Vicarious Pictures, 2024
My life, like any other, has been complicated and whole periods are lost from conscious memory, never told to anyone, not even to myself by myself. Some experiences once lived were allowed to slide off into nothingness because there seemed no reason to have had them to begin with, or to save them to revisit later. I had a sense that memory space is limited, and not a lot that passes through our consciousness is worth keeping. That may have been true, but who was I to make those judgements?
Alan Feltus presents us with a riveting account of an artist discovering and nurturing his vision, including the works he loved and the artists who were key to his development. Along with the insights it provides into Feltus’s work, it gives us a fascinating account of growing up in 1940s and 50s Manhattan, including how the Metropolitan Museum became a second home, and why, later in life, a painter would pull up his roots and move to Assisi. The memoir grabs our attention and never lets go.