Chryssa

There aren't many people whose passing I read about that I've actually met. I don't keep count, but it can't be more than the fingers on one hand. Chryssa might actually be the first for all I remember.

When I say 'read about' I mean as a news item obituary. No elbow rubbing with statesman, Nobel prize winners (any category), actors, musicians, villains, scientists, military figures, Congressional Medal of Honor winners, educators, judges, lawyers, sports figures (any sport), and generally writers. I know a few writers who might someday warrant a news obit piece, but they're either about my age, or somewhat younger, so they're still around and haven't shuffled off because of age or illness. Give us all time.

But Chryssa is someone I met and talked to. She was a somewhat noted artist who worked in neon lighting. She was known by only her first name, but the obituary in Sunday's NYT reveals more about that.

Chryssa's work was said to evolve from letters and numbers, perhaps the coded graffiti from the Greek Underground that appeared on walls she saw growing up in what was then Nazi-occupied Athens during World War II.  Margalit Fox's obituary explains better. My encounter with Chryssa involved a delivery of flowers and a polite rejection of an errand.

The obituary describes that Chryssa's first solo exhibit in New York was at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1961. The early 60s was about the time I delivered flowers to Chryssa, who then lived on Broadway, just off Union square, near Paragon sporting goods (still there). I have no idea who sent her the flowers. She might have even been ordering them herself. I had no idea she was an artist until I got to her place, a large open floor plan loft-like area with a mattress on the floor. Exactly how you expected the living area of an artist to be.

 

I remember her looking pretty much like what the picture is in the obituary. There were objects in her studio, but no neon. I do remember what seemed to be mounted pages of a telephone directory that attracted my attention. Even at a somewhat early age, I tended to appreciate the off-beat.

 

The kicker was she asked me to go get her a bottle of booze at Frank's liquor store--still there--off Union Square. I remember sort of looking at her funny because I was about 12 or 13 at the time, and knew liquor couldn't be sold to me unless I was 18. And I also knew I had no chance of convincing someone I was 18.

 

She didn't seem to understand that there were laws regulating the sale of booze to minors, but accepted my explanation. I think I got a tip anyway.

 

Somewhere around the same time small pieces of her neon work were publicly exhibited in the Lower Level of Grand Central Terminal. I guess she was big news at the time. I remember liking what I saw.

 

Sometime in the 'aughts' I was walking on West Broadway and noticed a street level doorbell that had the name Chryssa above it. For some reason I explored no further.

 

I liked the works I remember seeing. I always thought that letters and numbers could be seen as forms of art.

 

What the hell. She might have just been another crazy Greek whose work appealed to me.