The yoga of Herb and Dorothy

Have you ever seen a movie so good you had to see it again - the next night?

So it was with Herb and Dorothy: 50x50, which I watched again Sunday night at the little ACME Theatre in Lambertville.

And I found myself in tears, again.

Herb and Dorothy Vogel could not have seemed more ordinary: she was a librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library and he was a postal worker. They worked at their day jobs for 30+ years.

Outside they were ordinary people but inside, they had an amazing secret...

Herb and Dorothy were modern-day Medici; not wealthy or famous and with seemingly no resources, they nevertheless collected and thus literally supported modern artists whose brilliance they appreciated while to most it remained obscure. Herb and Dorothy had a talent for seeing genius. And they did it all for love; of art, of collecting, and of each other.

Herb and Dorothy simply found a way to live a life they loved  despite any obstacles.

Herb and Dorothy were early adapters and appreciators of Minimalist Art, a countertrend to Abstract Expressionism's bold color, large brushstrokes and grand scale. Minimalism was about white canvases, small drawings, single splotches on notepaper, the kind of art people still stand in front of at the Museum of Modern Art, scratching their heads and saying, "My kid could do that."

The art was like Herb and Dorothy themselves: easy to mistake for ordinary.

But Herb and Dorothy got it. And more than that: they found a way to support it by collecting it. A lot.

Their simple plan: live on one salary and buy art with the other.

By 1987 they had collected over 2500 pieces in their one-bedroom apartment in New York City. Have you ever been in a NYC one-bedroom apartment? Many of us have closets larger.

But Herb and Dorothy found a way.

Paintings hanging from every wall, sculpture dangling from the ceiling, drawings stacked high under their bed, they kept going. Because nothing stopped their passion.

In the 1980s, they decided to donate their collection to the National Gallery in Washington DC, to share it with a community larger than could fit in their NYC apartment.

And then, over the next 16 years, they collected another 4000 pieces. Passion is a hard thing to control and why would you want to?

This time, Herb and Dorothy went even larger scale: after much deliberation: they decided to divide and donate 50 pieces from their collection to one art museum in all 50 states of this country.

50 art pieces, 50 states, limitless brilliance.

The film Herb and Dorothy documented the gifting of these art pieces; the artists, the museum curators, the gift to communities like Fargo North Dakota and Miami Beach Florida who could experience this art in local museums that had no funds for such acquisitions.

But mostly, this was a love story.

The love that Herb and Dorothy shared for art, for life, for each other, this just was the story of  two ordinary people willing to explore the miracle inside them and go in the direction of its call. They never said, "I can't," as in, "I can't afford to buy original art on my meager salary," or "I can't fit another piece of art in my tiny house." They just did.

And in the end, they gifted all of us. Not just with art, but with the example of indefatigible spirit.

It started me thinking about the greatness hiding inside each of us.

I glimpse it in hot yoga. Through the sweat and the haze, I have a clear view of a roomful of  amazing beings. Whatever called you to hot yoga precedes you, introduces you as the Light You May Otherwise Be Hiding. 

I can see it in every hot yoga student. But sometimes, it's hard to see in myself.

But then I think of of Herb and Dorothy.

It's interesting that the art they loved was Minimalisms. No one stands beside a Michelangelo sculture or gazes up at the Sistine Ceiling and thinks, "Hey, I could do that." But stand beside a Mark Rothko color field or even a Jackson Pollock splatter painting long enough and you will hear the famlilar, "That's art?!" comment.

It's easy to misunderstand things.

These days, that thought makes me smile. Even while people are rejecting the art, they are also engaging with it, and, perhaps for a moment imagining themselves as the artist, the Creator, while saying, "I could do that," even though in a disdainful tone.

Of course, we are all brilliant creators. Your art is in how you choose to live your life.

Herb died in 2012 and Dorothy now lives in her one-bedroom apartment in New York City alone, sorting through her artifacts for the Smithsonian Museum. She says she is looking forward to living simply, with white walls and lots of space.  She has stopped collecting art; that life it done. But not for one minute do I doubt that her new chapter will be as richly colored as when she and Herb lived among the paintings of Lichtenstein and Rothko.

We are all brilliant artists on the inside. What will it take to live it on the outside?

Comments

[Mallory Maier]

Absolutely, beautiful Rhonda. I know I was drawn to hot yoga as a way to uncover more of my core. I look forward to the journey ahead.

[Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT]

Thanks, Aimee. Catch this movie if you can - it's a beautiful testament to a life well lived - and proof that sometimes, like a small pebble dropped into a large lake, quiet and deliberate can make the most powerful impact.