Cassette 9: Metropolitan Museum of Art (1981)

**'Claudia Atieno: A Memorium'** in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harlem. Introduction by Elaine Hara, director of contemporary exhibitions.

> *"I don’t know if she was brave enough to dive, in the end, really. I hope she was. I hope she freed herself from the weight of an audience’s expectations. I hope she threw herself into a moment of brief bliss with no thought as to how that moment might be perceived. I hope she felt the joy of falling into oblivion. I hope she felt reborn."*
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Roimata opens her narration by talking about her process for choosing which paintings to include in the exhibition. It is not easy trying to guess at another person's wishes and she suggests that she was likely better off for having to work from her own thoughts and feelings than Claudia's, as artists are not often the best curators of their own work. Regardless, she hopes that Claudia would have approved of her choices.

## House with Yellow Door

This was one of Roimata's favourites of Claudia's works, with a lively and playful atmosphere that she felt reflected the woman herself. She was talkative and brought people out of themselves, but rarely talked about herself. The house with the yellow door looks simple, but welcoming, giving the impression of a house you would not walk away from unfed. There is a friendly-seeming family standing outside it, and Roimata is unsure whether this painting depicts a real scene that ever happened, or an imagined, idealised childhood. She is also unsure whether it is more tragic to imagine it was the truth, or a fiction.

> *More about this painting and related paintings in Cassette #1: Tate Modern (1971) and Cassette #5: Van Gogh Museum (1977)*
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## Woman in Bath

Claudia was the only artist Roimata ever allowed to use her as a subject. Being an impatient person, she found sitting for a portrait tedious, but Claudia was persuasive. She expresses that portraits never show the whole of a person and often counterintuitively depict secrecy rather than openness. The movement of the steam, the words exchanged between artist and subject, and by extension the words left unsaid, are not depicted in the painting, and you cannot even see Roimata's face. She asks if the listener is attempting to interpret her expression anyway - she requests that they do not.

> *More about this painting in Cassette #1: Tate Modern (1971)*
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## The Empty Pier

A painting created long before Roimata met Claudia, and one she knew very little about. She had never asked about where or when it was painted, and doubted she would have got a straightforward answer if she had. It depicts a quiet, lonely beach, not a dormant winter beach but a forgotten or hidden one, that had not seen human activity in a long time. The wooden pier is rotten and perilous, although at first glance it appears sturdy. Likewise, the sea appears calm at first, but it is shadowed and betrays a storm coming, ready to break the peace.

## Unfinished Work

Although she thought the work must have been started while they were both still in Cornwall, Roimata had never seen this piece before planning the exhibition. The north-west corner of the Cornwall House is visible, and the slope of grass leading down to the sea behind it. The sea was unfinished, with only a thin, pale wash on the horizon where it should be. On the southern edge of the island is a sketched-out figure or tree where there had been no tree on the real cliff. The part of the island depicted was a favourite spot of Roimata's while she lived there, where she would often dive into the cove.

Claudia often asked Roimata how she was brave enough to take the plunge, and Roimata described how freeing and exhilarating it was, trying to persuade her to jump with her, unsuccessfully. She goes on to describe a memory, supposedly from the last time they saw each other, where Roimata had been working on a painting she had been trying to finish for some time, before she left for Amsterdam. She passed Claudia on the way inside to collect her things, apparently eager to get away but sure enough that she would be returning soon. The two said a brief goodbye, but Claudia said suddenly that she was going to take the plunge, and although Roimata wished she meant it in a figurative and literal sense, she interpreted her to mean she was going to try diving. Later, she recalled that she had not warned Claudia that the tide was low and it was unsafe to dive, but could not remember why, even after going over it so many times in her mind.

Roimata hoped that Claudia had been brave enough to dive in the end, and that she had felt as exhilarated, as free, and as reborn as she had promised.