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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Third Generation

Bleu Cease, Peter Monacelli, Kurt Kurt Feuerherm and Kristine Bouyoucos at Maker Mentor 2013 show at Rochester Contemporary
Bleu Cease, Peter Monacelli, Kurt Kurt Feuerherm and Kristine Bouyoucos at Maker Mentor 2013 show at Rochester Contemporary

WXXI hosted the Rochester premier of the “The Central Park Five” at the Little Theater last night. There was a reception beforehand in the café and we planned to attend but we were so close to finishing the wood trim around in our new room that we stayed and slugged it out. Our methods have evolved through experience and most importantly our mistakes. We measure twice and cut once and we sneak up on tight fittings by cutting pieces a little large, trying them and then fine tuning. And Peggi and I are a damn good team when it comes to ripping long pieces the Sears table saw that we inherited from our former neighbor, Leo Pfeiffer.

We finished in time to make it to the opening of Makers/Mentors at Rochester Contemporary. The mentor, Kurt Feuerherm, was my mentor as well back in the seventies and his influence was evident in the work of the three makers, evident in the three makers, Peter Monacelli, Kristine Bouyoucos and Patricia Dreher. I managed to glom on to a photo op with three of the featured artists. California-based Patricia Dreher was not in the house but her Stinson Beach Winter Light Series and several paintings of the Port of Oakland were beautiful. This is an especially strong show. Pete Monacelli’s abstract interpretations of downtown Rochester, entitled “Midtown Transfiguration,” are outstanding and Kurt’s abstract landscapes are sensational.

Pete normally teaches at MCC on Thursdays so last night’s opening was a field trip for his students. Their assignment was to take in the show and interview Kurt Feuerherm.

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