Mattilda Sycamore’s ‘Touching the Art’

Queer activist and author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore has often been praised for work that escapes the limits of literature. The reviews of her book The Freezer Door, say it all: not one reader claims to know what the book is about, but they do know how Sycamore’s thoughtful ruminations and artistic reimaginings made them feel. Her most recent work, “Touching the Art,” carries a more definitive storyline, but is still written in her trademark stream-of-consciousness style—Her writing mimics the disjointed, blurry snippets of dreams that continue to linger long after you wake.

“Touching the Art” explores the motivations of Sycamore’s late grandmother: painter Gladys Goldstein. Sycamore captures her complicated, contradictory relationship with her grandmother through sensory descriptions of Goldstein’s art, and thoughtful musings on her life that mingle intimately with Bernstein’s memories of her grandmother.

“I want to let go of the need to describe the art, and instead describe the sensation, the mood, the shaping of emotion. But I also need to say something about how an oil pastel drawing is embedded in this paperwork, it’s just a small part of the piece but you can’t look away because the colors are so vibrant,” Sycamore writes. Somehow, her words capture the essence of each piece so thoroughly that it’s hard to believe the paintings aren’t splayed on the page in front of you.

Memories drift from fond, soft retellings of formative childhood moments to glimpses of Bernstein’s feelings of abandonment as she grappled with her father’s sexual abuse, and Goldstein, along with the rest of Bernstein’s family, turned the other way.

“I don’t know when my life as a whore became a topic of conversation, but I know my mother became obsessed with saying I was endangering myself,” Sycamore reveals. “She didn’t mention the danger she kept me in as a child. She wanted to address an imagined crisis so she didn’t have to confront the real one.”

What’s remarkable about Sycamore’s writing is her ability to enfold the reader in the story of her grandmother while simultaneously prodding her own past, questioning her family’s foundational beliefs, and commenting on queerness, race, and privilege. This book feels like a warmly extended hand—It’s a personal invitation to dive headfirst into Bernstein’s life, using art as a floatation device and a source of universal connection.

“I never paid attention to that corner above the refrigerator before, but now I look over at all different times, searching for what the light reveals,” Sycamore writes. “That part of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup label, or when I notice that the whole collage bends forward and back, each flattened tube of crinkled foil collapsing over the other. That shimmering green—Oh, that shimmering green.”

“Touching the Art” will be published by Soft Skull on November 7. You can preorder the book here. 

Photo courtesy of Mattilda Sycamore