Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

Sixties glass building on Mount Hope Avenue in Rochester, New York
Sixties glass building on Mount Hope Avenue in Rochester, New York

At ninety Kurt Feuerherm is a well seasoned artist. His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, Albright Knox and the MAG. He was my Fine Arts mentor at SUNY Empire State and he received an award from the college tonight in a ceremony at Cutler Union. They asked some former students to show a few pieces along with Kurt’s work so contributed three of my crime faces. A jazz duo performed and they served drinks and finger food.

It was my first alumni event. I usually ignore the junk mail from the school. They may have even taken me off the list. I’ve never shown my degree to anyone, never even had the opportunity to put it on a job application since I mostly worked for myself. I dropped out of school after a year, picked up some credits for Creative Workshop classes, took a couple of fantastic photo classes at the UofR, got some credit for commercial art jobs and then worked with Kurt. In ten years time I cobbled together an art degree.

Kurt helped me a lot. I was doing something close to cartoons with flat color when I first met him. He got me abstracting my subject matter and working at a larger scale. He sent to the library with a list of contemporary artists who were working in a similar vein. He opened my eyes to a bigger picture. He was very helpful and I’d like to thank him.

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