Generation Z

Nancy Wiley Generation Z portraits at Main Street Arts
Nancy Wiley Generation Z portraits at Main Street Arts

Clifton Springs is only 55 cents away on the NYS Thruway. Our passengers, Pete and Gloria, paid the toll and provided the kind of conversation that makes time fly. The shows at Main Street Arts, in the center of this restored town, are consistently good. “Perception of Time,” a group there now is a case in point. I liked Nancy Wiley’s loose, painterly Generation Z portraits, particularly the second one in from the bottom right. Wiley apparently likes this one too because she shows it in the catalog for the show along with this statement. “I have been struck by the struggle many of them go through to be authentic and honest about who they are as individuals, often challenging old social norms.”

Sam Rathbun, an artist in residence for the month, was working on ideas for an upcoming Glens Falls show in the the studio space on the second floor. She had covered a wall with large, fluid India ink drawings on paper. She told me she grew up on a farm near Naples and is influenced by the equipment her father uses there.

Kurt and Judy Feuerherm have a fun little show up there as well. Kurt was my Fine Arts mentor at Empire State and his work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, Albright Knox and the MAG. The small assemblage sculpture and painting/collage pieces here create an idyllic winter garden.

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Brilliant Corners

Art work on the floor for the upcoming Small Works Show at Main Street Arts in Clifton Springs, New York
Art work on the floor for the upcoming Small Works Show at Main Street Arts in Clifton Springs, New York

If I have my Refrigerator hat on I’m either splitting wood or cross-country skiing. If you know someone who participates in either of those activities I have great Cyber-Monday, $10 gift suggestion. I’m quite sure Thelonious Monk wasn’t thinking about stacking firewood when he named his song but that’s what I was thinking when I built the first corner for a new stack. Of course when I stepped back to admire it looked like the Tower of Pisa.

Our neighbor was out chopping up leaves with his mower and he stopped to chat. He has pretty much given up on the Bills this year. And I’m trying to decide whether to give up on or support the Rhinos by buying season tickets for next year. The current owners have been trying to raise a million plus in the next few weeks or they’re threatening to sell the team. This used to be “Soccer Town.”

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