Bill Walton: Artist to Artist at Drexel

However, being something of a minimalist myself, I walked in for a better look.

A journalism instructor once impressed on me the importance of white space on the printed page, and composers speak about the space between musical notes. To see the concept applied to art, drop into the Bill Walton show at Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.

Consisting of prints and objects the late Philadelphia artist traded, gave, or bequeathed to colleagues, the exhibit hides in plain sight in the Pearlstein’s 3,500 square feet. Consisting of fit-in-your-palm paintings, wallet-sized photographs, and sculptures no bigger than a backpack, the gallery looks empty.

Minimalist heaven

I started at the nearest wall, where two thick strips of painted wood about the length of Popsicle sticks, hung side by side, an inch apart. Walton didn’t date pieces, because he believed his work was always in progress, and often did not title them. This one had a name, though: Baffin Brook. I continued on.

The next work was a dishtowel-sized piece of canvas, painted black and folded over a metal bar attached to the wall. It was called Sweet Lou & Marie. Were they the recipients of the piece? Were they a couple? Coal miners? Oil drillers? Walton could have skipped the name.

On the next, he did. The first of many untitled works in Artist to Artist, the piece consisted of a small rectangle of black paper wearing a belt of electrical tape, surrounded by a large beige mat and pale wood frame. I sketched five squares, chuckling, wondering what to say about this exhibit. It was about this time I decided that I liked Walton’s style.

There is an undercurrent of irony and humor in the work that made me stop judging and just meet the pieces on their own terms. By this time, the other visitor was long gone. I was alone in minimalist heaven: endless space, deep silence, tiny art.

Sink or swim?

My favorite piece came next: Drowning and Swimming, two identically painted five-inch wood squares. Each has a white cylinder bobbing on a dark blue field, which I interpreted to be the smokestack of an ocean liner that is either rising from the sea or going down for the third time. The diptych is Walton’s glass: Half-empty or half-full, you decide.

Walton’s reluctance to date his work didn’t bother me at all, but I wish he’d titled more of them, both for the insight titles sometimes provide and because it was Walton’s titles that tipped me to his humor.

It would be fun to know the inside jokes Walton and his friends shared through these pieces, and I would have welcomed more information about him. Perhaps Walton would have thought that too limiting, preferring to encourage — or to force — viewers to invest more of themselves in the experience. Unlike many Famous Artists, who primarily express themselves and know exactly when pieces are finished, Walton, it seems, wanted to leave room for viewers’ interpretation.

This is easier with some of his pieces than others. I wasn’t sure what to make of Dangerous Houses of Maine, Walton’s grandly presented newspaper clippings, though I liked the cryptic title. Four Brothers Pond, though, was right up my alley: Four pieces of painted canvas hanging on a brass rod, some neatly folded, some flung over. The title tells a story, and I bet the Four Brothers were Sweet Lou and Marie’s sons.