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Wreckage: My Father S Legacy of Art & Junk
In this memoir, Sascha Feinstein recounts life with his father, Sam Feinstein, who was both a brilliant
artist and a hoarder of monumental proportions. He collected only uncollectible objects--artifacts that
required him to give them importance--and at the time of his death in 2003, his hoarding had fundamentally
destroyed all three of his large homes. Despite this, Sam Feinstein was a remarkable painter and art teacher. This strange double helix of creativity and destruction guides these collage-like reflections. Like his students' canvases--paintings inspired by enormous still lifes constructed from the world's refuse--this book incorporates myriad sources in order to create a more layered experience for the reader. The final result is the depiction of a painter with the highest artistic ideals who nevertheless left behind an incalculable amount of physical and emotional wreckage.--David Gessner, author of Return of the Osprey and All the Wild That Remains "Booklist"
artist and a hoarder of monumental proportions. He collected only uncollectible objects--artifacts that
required him to give them importance--and at the time of his death in 2003, his hoarding had fundamentally
destroyed all three of his large homes. Despite this, Sam Feinstein was a remarkable painter and art teacher. This strange double helix of creativity and destruction guides these collage-like reflections. Like his students' canvases--paintings inspired by enormous still lifes constructed from the world's refuse--this book incorporates myriad sources in order to create a more layered experience for the reader. The final result is the depiction of a painter with the highest artistic ideals who nevertheless left behind an incalculable amount of physical and emotional wreckage.--David Gessner, author of Return of the Osprey and All the Wild That Remains "Booklist"
- GenresNonfictionMemoir
224 pages, ebook
Published February 24, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 30, 2017
Local poet and professor Feinstein is the son of Sam Feinstein, a noted abstract expressionist painter and, as it turns out, a hoarder. This is a memoir about the relationship between Sascha and Sam is explored through memory and through the author’s experience of clearing Sam’s Cape Cod house and garden. Did Sam’s hoarding feed his art? Or did his art inform his hoarding? What is the relationship between creativity and destruction, both physical and emotional?
January 25, 2018
A fascinating look at the relationship between artist/father and artist/son. Whether Feinstein is describing the natural world of Cape Cod, or a house, or his father's work, his writing sings. WRECKAGE will take you on a journey through the tenacity of bamboo to Robert Creeley's admiration of Charlie Parker. I finished this book months ago--but I still find myself re-reading passages. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews