{"id":105293,"date":"2017-09-12T19:20:36","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T19:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/designwire\/designer-murray-moss-creates-his-own-art-gallery-from-his-connecticut-basement\/"},"modified":"2022-11-29T13:19:10","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T18:19:10","slug":"designer-murray-moss-creates-his-own-art-gallery-from-his-connecticut-basement","status":"publish","type":"id_news","link":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/designwire\/designer-murray-moss-creates-his-own-art-gallery-from-his-connecticut-basement\/","title":{"rendered":"Designer Murray Moss Creates His Own Art Gallery From His Connecticut Basement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Even though I’ve lived in Hamden, Connecticut<\/a>, <\/span>for seven months, I’m only beginning to become aware of those differences between my old burg and my new burg that are somewhat less obvious than the scenery, the good-natured neighborliness here on Blake Road—what’s a Block Party?—and the fact that ants are not an Alternative Truth. Social discourse, for example, as limited as it is at the moment, is beginning to taste different here rather than <\/span>there. <\/span>(As is the general quality of the pizza. Don’t look at me—it’s really a big deal here, and. . .oh, forget it.) At the few dinner parties, drinks parties, and more ad hoc encounters we’ve had with the local townsfolk, Art, a subject as ubiquitous in New York chitchat as is the aforementioned pizza in my adopted metropolis or the weather during the ski season in Aspen, has rarely come up and, when it has, has usually been at our initiative. In spite of the Constitution State’s history of rubbing elbows with the likes of Jasper Johns, Sol LeWitt, and Alexander Calder and the plethora and quality of nearby museums, such as the Yale University Art Gallery<\/a>, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History<\/a>, and the Yale Center for British Art<\/a>, in my experience to date, Art ranks about as close to the top of the Conversation-Starter List as do I to the British Throne. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, is there something New York–centric about Art? Is Art, to be even more precise, Manhattan- centric? Is Art as incestuous a topic in old New Amsterdam as is Junior’s cheesecake in Brooklyn? Is Art as topical in Topeka as Taffy is in Atlantic City? <\/span><\/p>\n

These were the Neo-Shakespearean questions that flooded my mind (alas) when I finished painting the laundry room in the basement two evenings ago. A warren of scary, mostly wooden rooms filled with furnaces both in and long out of use, workshops, and what appears to be an orphanage for unwanted window screens, this unfamiliar Zone also houses the dismal, spidery, <\/span>pipe-y, <\/span>old laundry room, with its huge stone utility sink, once used for washing clothes and now used to drain the Maytag. The whole issue of redecorating came up because of the look on our precious and perfect housekeeper’s face when I first introduced her to her new home-away-from-home: Are you acquainted with the facial expression No Way, Renée? <\/span><\/p>\n

Against my better instincts, having no better idea of my own other than Battleship Gray, I went with Franklin’s “vision” of pure white. I mean Blizzard White. I painted everything except the dead mice. I painted the unforgivable: hinges. I painted the old toilet stall. I painted behind everything that had a front. <\/span><\/p>\n

Oops. Having painted myself out of the basement, I emerged and went to bed.<\/span><\/p>\n