Paul Simon, in the homestretch of a farewell tour, talks of unique journey through his past for 'In the Blue Light' album
NEW YORK - A strikingly detailed self-portrait of painter and photo-realist Chuck Close hangs prominently on one wall of Paul Simon's elegant office in a high-rise overlooking Central Park.
From a distance, a viewer can perceive Close's piercing blue eyes, his black, horn-rimmed round spectacles and precisely trimmed mustache and goatee. Yet on closer inspection, from just inches away, the subject's features dissolve into a richly colored mosaic of discrete geometrical shapes and images that form the whole - the same way any song can be broken down into myriad phrases, words, letters, chords and notes.
"My friend Chuck Close over there," the 76-year-old singer and songwriter said last week, gesturing toward the artwork. "That used to be one of our big conversations: the similarities between painting and songwriting."
Simon sat in a chair across the spacious room from the image, glancing up to admire its craft. The office itself reflects the intersection of music and visual art that intrigues the veteran singer-songwriter: an exquisite baby grand piano, a weathered upright bass and, on another wall, a neo-primitivist art piece made from more than a dozen well-used violin bows strung together with raw fabric backing.
Next to the doorway is a glass display case housing many of the 16 Grammy Award statuettes he's collected for his music over the past 50 years.
Simon takes the analogy of music as painting to a
