It has been more than twenty-five years since I owned "Mazurki" but while going through an old photo album, I recently came across a snapshot of it hanging in the corner over my bed. Thinking it over, I began to realize that even though I no longer own the image, it would be a good project to do some research and answer a question that still nags me: "What was Mazurki about?"

It didn't take much effort to find a copy of Bill Berkson's "ENIGMA VARIATIONS" for sale on the internet, and when it arrived I found that the poem "Mazurki" was the second poem in the book, opposite the image of the drawing that I once owned. Reading the poem -- which Guston had in mind when he created the image -- was something I should have done years ago:

Mazurki, by Bill Berkson

(Click above to view poem in a new browser window)

Reading the poem certainly didn't make me say "Allright then, I understand everything I need to about the drawing." Just how a poem with a single plural noun, the title, a singular noun, "duffle," and thirty-six adjectives was connected to the cryptic forms of the drawing was going to be hard to fathom. I was going to need some help.

Fortunately, I was able to contact Bill Berkson via e-mail, and he was more than willing to answer some questions that I really should have asked years ago.

First I asked him about the title, and here is what he had to say:

" 'Mazurki' is two things in my mind: 1) plural of mazurka (Polish dance); and 2) Mike Mazurki, an ex-boxer-type character actor in 1940s movies. The mazurka part is how the poem ‘turns’ on its one-word lines, all of them adjectives. I’m fond of the poem; I’ve never written another like it."

Mr. Berkson also took the time to tell me about the objects to be found in the Guston drawing:

"John, some are generic Guston objects, but some objects in the generic-Guston modes of meta-object -- object that could be one thing and another. 'You’re painting a shoe, you start painting the sole and it turns into a loaf of bread; you’re painting the bread and it becomes the moon ...' (inexact quote of what PG said to me)."

When Berkson told me how he identified the objects I found that there were some surprises for me, particularly in the fact that he suggested that one object could "morph" into something else. Here is a chart comparing Bill Berkson's identifications of the objects with what I thought I saw many years ago.

Below: The objects from "Mazurki":

Seed: A cigarette butt? Berkson: Bird in flight with studio object	Seed: A beer mug? Berkson: coffee mug + table/book with writing	Seed: A beer bottle? Berkson: Bottle (Guston didn't drink beer)
Seed: A gear? Berkson: Gear or flower	Seed: No idea Berkson: abstract (possible head)	Seed: A cam? Berkson: Stubby hand with pointing finger

Seed: An open book and a glass Berkson: Book with wind-up key attachment (but the wings of the key are also shoe soles) . . . the rest are doodles (PG could probably name them).

So, a poem with thirty-six adjectives had inspired Guston to pen a group of things capable of being more than one thing, some of them cryptic and personal. Both Mazurkis -- the drawing and the poem -- seem designed to multiply ambiguities, just as the title "ENIGMA VARIATIONS" would suggest. Some of the adjectives could seemingly link to some of the images, for example "Thirsty" goes nicely with a bottle, but where could I find am image that works for "Laid" or "Shot?" Add to that, the adjectives found in the poem could describe qualities or states of objects or of people, or of both.

Of all the adjectives in the poem "Uncertain" best describes how I now felt about both the poem and the drawing. Pursuing any kind of fixed meaning for either would not seem to be a good approach. The poem seems to say "these words can spin you in any direction you like." In response, Guston's drawing seems to say "I have a stable of hard-won personal symbols, and the poem has elicited some of them. Make of them what you will." As it turns out, that isn't too far from what Mr. Guston actually did.

A comment in Bill Berkson's e-mail to me led me to contact the Special Collections Department of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, at the University of Connecticut. There, among papers donated by Mr. Berkson, archivist Melissa Watterworth located a note from Guston himself, which he had attached to the drawing for Mazurki when he created it. What a find: I now had, in Guston's scrawled handwriting, his own thoughts about Berkson's poem.

Mr. Guston's note had now taken me as close as I will ever get to understanding the drawing. Apparently, the very complex, enigmatic drawing came from the simple acts of looking, seeing and remembering simple objects that were familiar to the artist.

There must be a lesson somewhere in this story. Clearly, when I was younger, my instincts told me to value and look at the work of a mature artist, but I certainly didn't look all that hard at the time. I valued Guston, but not enough that I ever took the time to really understand what I had when I owned it. If I had known just how rich the drawing was maybe I would have hung on to it.

If Dr. Elsen were still alive maybe I would send him an e-mail and finally get back to him about why I like "The Coat." I did see him at a college reunion just before he died, and I doubt he remembered me or that he would have needed anyone to defend Guston to him. The art world has embraced Guston's late work in a big way, and prices have soared. Just last month the Morgan Library in New York closed a major show of Guston drawings which Mr. Berkson tells me was "magnificent."

Now, in my early fifties, I am amazed at the pull I felt when I came across the snapshot of "Mazurki." Maturity must make some kind of difference, and now I can at least say that I know something about the collaboration between Bill Berkson and Philip Guston, and what kind of ideas they were working with. They valued looking, poetry, ambiguity, suggestion, collaboration and introspection.

Seeing the world the way I do now, I have to tell you what I think of those qualities.

"Tops"