We took Pete and Shelley up to see the Leo Dodd painting show at Geisel Gallery. It closes on Wednesday so, sadly, this will probably be our last visit. We spent some time studying the four that are in B&L’s permanent collection. They were painted in 1994 and 1995 when the building was being constructed. Jean Geisel bought them then and they will be returned to B&L’s Goodman Street plant when the show is over.
These paintings are very interesting to me because they were executed rather quickly, like big sketches. Parts of the paintings are what you might call “unfinished” but those sections work especially well to convey the construction and action going on. Not only that, the expressively drawn, mostly white areas are the real subject and the reason he was standing out in Washington Square Park. They are alive today and what more could you hope for from a painting left behind.
Men were working on the steeple of Saint Mary’s when we stopped by. The church, just across the street from the park, played a big part in our family history and my father would have loved seeing this. Our cousin, Ray Tierney, bought one of the Saint Mary’s paintings from this show. His wife liked the painting because of the political activity it depicted (protesters with Occupy signs) and Ray like it because, as he told me, he was an alter boy at Saint Mary’s. In fact he was paid to serve mass (I never was) because Saint Mary’s had no grade school and they needed boys to serve. He took the bus downtown from Saint Boniface’s and loved getting out of school to serve at funerals.
We are really excited about the Champion’s League final on Saturday. We have been follwing Real Madrid all year but have a soft spot from Liverpool and Salem so we’ll be happy whoever wins. I just hope it will be a good match. We walked up to Wegmans and came back with some corn, vegetables and fish to grill after the game.
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