The Yellow House on the Right, Please.
By: Isabel Jane
Tags: New York City, Home, Museums, Short Story, Art

I grew up in New York City in the West Village, across the street from Grace Paley, down the block from Edgar Allen Taffel, the home of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the famed brownstone bombed by the Weather Underground radicals of the 70s. Patti Smith, Simon & Garfunkel — streets varnished by public figures with poetry and praise. My home, the Yellow House on the right, incubated generations of artists before I burst crying on the scene (cesarian, of course.)

The house was first the studio of Daniel Chester French, maker of the maquette of Lincoln that now sits glowering down the Mall in DC. It then transferred ownership to several other artists before becoming in the late 50s, a wedding present to my grandparents, Elizabeth and Gonzalo Fonseca. Both painters, one a sculptor the other a mother, the house quickly became more a museum than a home to six. Four children in five years kept my grandmother, Elizabeth, busy while Gonzalo, smoking Edgeworth tobacco and barely speaking English, chipped and chiseled away in his studio, sometimes the one in Italy. My grandmother kept a tiny painting loft only accessible by a narrow wooden ladder where she stole a few hours to paint between childcare and entertaining large dinner parties.

As a young child I would tip toe down the stairs, through jerky sliding doors with teeth baring noise, to take longer looks at the large oil paintings of Nudes and imagined structures, of African masks and severed marble fingers the size of my pint-sized forearm. The dining room table, made by my grandfather, was larger than most studio apartments you’ll find on StreetEasy or Zillow. It bore carved names of all who attended my grandmother’s Infamous dinner parties, graffiti encouraged by Gonzalo, “as long as it was good.” The dinner party guest list comprised of Artists and Writers and Thinkers, the kind rote by Gertrude Stein and de Beauvoir. Their signatures are listed in no specific order in swirls across the vast mahogany surface, punctuated by two round holes each concealing a silver ashtray in the shape of a maple leaf. On the brown textured walls hang two tapestries of Aztec origin — angular Cats and Dogs whose bodies, in Egyptian Profile, dance in a conga line with faces that grin at you with alternate colored eyes.

Upstairs, our apartment. My mother’s roost on the top floor was a separate world filled with smoke and fabric. A costume designer by training and a skilled tailor in practice, my mother worked between ironing boards and large plywood surfaces supported by horse legs and towers of art and design books — an unofficial extra-mile-expansion-pack of the Strand. The studio area felt expansive with the large cloisonné window that reached to the ceiling, overlooking the interior courtyards and nurses quarters of St. Vincent’s hospital on the corner.

Her balcony, over the desks, beyond the bed, and across the room overlooked Jefferson Market clock tower which anchored us on 6th avenue, looking downtown to where the Twin Towers once stood, now replaced by the Freedom Tower, Frank Gehry’s riverside Twisting Tour and the Jenga Building (you know the one.). The wooden deck that gave you a souvenir splinter after each visit was a fond gathering spot and visitor center for my mother during her working hours.

The little kitchenette — no more than a counter with one shelf above for water glasses — repurposed vessels once filled with apricot nectar from Italy — always had coffee, todays or yesterdays brew. Her mini fridge always offered a piece of chocolate or a handful of cold fridge-flavored nuts. To your left, The Closet — always “Strictly Off Limits” to prying paws that fondly fingered vintage J Crew Knits, well-worn Jos A. Banks perforated pullovers, and bowls of pearls. Shoes from Italy and France with the perennially elegant and sensible one-inch heel (“Stacked, obvio.”). The bathroom flanked the kitchenette on the other side, street-side. A long narrow water-closet with fixtures of comforting porcelain and cool tiles sheltered by a shag rug. The medicine cabinet mirror, conveniently out of reach for the first decade of my life, was a miniature Bigelow’s Pharmacy stocked with creams, Q-tips and duck-shaped bath gel capsules.

My older brother and I reigned over the floor below. His door graffitied with the welcoming message of “KNOCK LOUDLY: Knife Throwing Going On At ALL Times.” We get a long very well now, but spent many years at war. My room was a glorified closet, once belonging to my aunt and namesake, Isabel; pink, the pale pukey kind, and stuffed to the brim with animals, both alive and stitched. I won’t bore you, but like most children, I, too, had a hamster phase.

Weekdays I wore a classic private school uniform: navy jumper or skirt (girls weren’t allowed to wear pants—kneesocks or tights had to suffice in the winter), and a button up shirt of white or light blue. My mother, on top of being a costume designer, dressed me as she pleased, as any mother might with a little girl. To her credit, I was always the “best dressed, come ON!” She stretched the uniform constraints as best she could, though too far and I was sent home to change (because distracting other kids was more urgently addressed than my own education). Peter Pan collars, ankle socks with ruffles, shiny Mary Janes, curls pinned up with a bow to reveal the pearls stapled into my ears at 3 weeks old. Beaming in every school picture.

The Impending Revolution exploded at age 6 when I took wardrobe matters into my own hands. Fueled by Eloise at the Plaza, the ringleader of demanding disobedience and freedom, I began to dress myself. One single outfit might have included striped leggings, a polka dot dress, checked undershirt and a sequin headband surrounded by a posse of not one but 7 bows (You want bows?! I’ll give you bows.). On a good day.

Enterprising acts like this were encouraged in the house. Once the knife throwing subsided, the drawing, music, and dancing continued. Art lined the walls from the laundry room to the staircases. Even the floors were elegantly dressed, covered in hand-woven Peruvian and Turkish textiles. Walls were for Art and Books. Tables displayed sculptures of every size, from Bronze figurines to Noguchi paper lamps. Maquettes and Portraits everywhere. How wonderful to grow up in a Museum of Life.

for more information, watch: https://ny.curbed.com/2014/11/14/10022928/inside-a-yellow-townhouse-of-creativity-on-west-11th-street