for jasper johns

i’ve spent the bulk of my free time during this semi-staycation reading about jasper johns. throughout, i keep thinking of the moment last year when i met him for about two seconds after playing the memorial for ellsworth kelly at the philadelphia museum.

a friend (of mine, and of his) shuttled me to a closing elevator door with johns behind it, literally stopping the door with a waved hand. he introduced me as the pianist who had performed earlier. i shook his hand and think i said, “it’s an honor.” i don’t remember what he said— maybe “it was very nice.“ 

now, having read about everything he’s done, created, seen, touched, experienced, i’m not sure i might have even mustered those three words at the time. i might have stood paralyzed before the man who, with rauchenberg, produced cage’s 25 year retrospective concert in 1958. not attended, but created. the man who talked as a colleague with duchamp, who calls warhol "andy” and rauschenberg “bob.” i knew about the flag, and i knew the name—iconic and seductive in itself—but i knew little more. 

or perhaps, knowing then what i do now, i might have leapt into the elevator and let it seal us there, though in this fantasy i still remain mute. but i at least stay with him for awhile until his eyes take me into that sacred space, stored alongside the other objects and people and places he’s seen but probably never totally forgotten.

Tantric Detail III (1981), Jasper Johns