West Side Canvas: Levain’s Grumeau de Bonte (Lump of Goodness)

Grumeau de Bonte
Painting and Essay by Robert Beck

They call them cookies, but they’re sure not like anything that came out of my mother’s oven. They are huge. When I first saw them in the display case, I thought they were all mislabeled, but no, that’s them. At times, you will see a line stretching from the original Levain down 74th Street, and watch people get their picture taken inside, outside, and in front of that case filled with those enormous lumps of goodness, more round than flat, called cookies.

I wasn’t painting there for that. I came for the ghosts. Painting at the other location on Amsterdam would have been easier from a logistics perspective—both places work up a good bustle and have the Levain vivacity. This one is small and narrow, down six steps to a retail space crowding the kitchen in back, but it has thirty years of stories in the walls I wanted to hear.

I arrived at six in the morning and set up sideways at the very front, just inside the window that looks up to the sidewalk. I’d have to turn my head 90° to the left in order to see my subject, and my neck would ache for two days, but that’s how a painting like this happens. I don’t go back and forth for each brushstroke—I look and then paint what is held in memory. I’m not duplicating everything that’s there; I’m describing those things that stuck. Things that likely would stick with you.

The early start gave me an unobstructed sightline past the counter into the kitchen for an hour and a half before the doors would open and my view would be compromised by customers. I was impressed by how the bakery team maneuvered together in the confined space and decided they were essential to the narrative.

At eight o’clock, those customers funneled down the steps and gathered in front of the case, wearing faces you see around a Christmas tree. Often they purchased for a group (three of those and two of those, no, make it two of those, two of those, one of…). The staff was very busy. There were bags and tins to fill, coffees to pour. I had to exercise a lot of bob-and-weave to see past the bodies.

It got tight in there. Customers were negotiating their arrivals and departures, tossing scarves over their shoulders, checking their pastry bags with their elbows out, and at times, we were very close. I had to paint defensively, switching brush hands and using my left arm for protection. I hang a reflective construction vest on my easel to catch people’s eyes, but it’s not effective in a packed room, and sometimes I have to stop painting to make sure no contact is made. People aren’t looking out for an easel with a wet painting and palette; they’re looking for a chocolate chip walnut cookie.

I only included one customer in the image. If I had depicted the reality, I wouldn’t have been able to show the kitchen, the case, the workers, or the energy at Levain. The ghosts would have been very disappointed.

Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.