Finding Vivian Maier Page #8

literally, she'd go across the street,

she'd get a can of food...

What did she have one day? It was,

like, corned beef hash or something.

I remember, right out of the can,

not even warm it up, with a spoon.

And said it was delicious.

She was much more

damaged than I thought.

And I have a lot more

empathy for her...

I just think...

What a lonely lady.

You know? Incredibly lonely.

And misunderstood.

So... Yeah, I think... I mean,

now, if I were to see her today,

after this, I wouldn't be

as hard on her, probably.

Somebody called me and said,

"The old lady in the park,

she fell, she kind of passed out.

"The ambulance is out there. "

So I went across the street,

and at that point,

they were loading her onto

the little cart there.

And she was telling the people,

the paramedics and such,

that she did not want to go,

she wanted to go home.

And they said that

she has to go with.

And she looked at me as if to say,

"Can you do something?"

But, nothing I could do about it.

I asked the paramedics,

they said, "No, she has to go. "

And then, but that was it.

I mean, they put her in the

ambulance and took her away.

And after the fact, a lot of

people in the neighbourhood said,

"Whatever happened to the old

lady?" and nobody ever knew.

You have to try to draw,

from the evidence you have,

some understanding of the individual.

I think her pictures

show a tenderness,

instant alertness to human tragedies

and those moments of

generosity and sweetness.

I see her as an incredibly watchful,

observant, caring person.

And probably why she was a nanny

was that she had those capacities.

In 1962, when she took

a lot of the pictures...

the kids would always

play in the ravines.

It's the most beautiful

spot in the world.

You know, instead of this

straight-edged suburban community,

you always went there cos you wanted

the kids to have a little touch of nature.

You know, wild nature.

There was a patch of wild

strawberries somewhere in there.

And I think she liked it so much,

that's why they buried her there.

It's a place that they

remembered she was happy.

Now, you tell me how

you can live forever.

Come on.

She might have gotten to the

end of her life and thought,

"Why didn't I try to get

that work out there?"

Some people's character prevents them

from pushing that little bit you

need to push to get the work seen.

You know, she didn't defend

herself as an artist.

She just did the work.

A canon is often established.

And so, when someone comes in,

there's always the sense that

they're secondary figures.

But I don't feel her as secondary.

When I look at the pictures,

I always feel something primary.

I think that the work is so good that

it's really winning over a lot of people

who were...

were dismissive of it previously.

Where it'll wind up, who knows?

Much of the art world establishment

still hasn't accepted

Vivian Maier's work.

But people don't care. They're not waiting

for that validation from institutions.

They're claiming Vivian

Maier's work for themselves.

Her work is now in

galleries in New York.

It can be seen in LA.

One in particular that

I bought, which I love,

there's an abject

poverty in the frame,

but there's also a happiness

in spite of it all.

Her work is being seen

around the world.

London, Germany, Denmark.

They're embracing it,

and they're embracing Vivian Maier.

Oui, oui, oui.

Oui, ca c'est sur.

Maybe this is the best

way of all for her.

To have it happen after she's died.

That would probably

make Viv happiest.

Cos in her own life, the attention, I think

she would have found overwhelming.

Viv was supposed to be

downtrodden, right?

She was, like, a nanny.

That's not considered to be a pretty

high-ranking position in life.

Not married.

Not any social life to speak of.

She didn't have these

measures of status

that people aspire to.

But she didn't have to

compromise one bit.

She did what she wanted.

That's what she taught me, is that she

got the life she wanted. She had it.

I understand a lot more about her.

But why was this person so private,

yet so prolific in an artform

that she never shared?

Who knows?

She did it so it

wouldn't be forgotten.

And... and here, it's not forgotten.

As she was photographing,

she was seeing just how close you

can come into somebody's space,

and make a picture of them.

That tells me a lot about her.

It tells me that she could go into

a space with a total stranger

and get them to accommodate

her by being themselves,

and generate this kind of moment,

you know, where two presences were

actually kind of vibrating together.

And then she's gone.

Well, I suppose nothing

is meant to last forever.

We have to make room for

other people. It's a wheel.

You get on, you have to go to the end,

and then somebody else takes your place.

And now I am going to close and

quickly run next door to do my work.

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