April 2009 – Page 2

April 4, 2009August 26, 2019

Beautiful Urban Decay

Detail from “A Lot Besides” by Ricky Sears at Rochester Contemporary. Click photo for full shot.

RoCo’s new show opened last night with “In Between”, paintings and sculpture by Brooklyn based artists Malin Abrahamsson and Ricky Sears. Bleu Cease, RoCo’s director, introduced us to both artists last night and we had a nice chat about their work. Malin said she felt as though Rochester was a third contributor to the show because their reaction to the city was right there on the walls.

I’m not sure if i ever would have determined that this work was based on Rochester if I didn’t read the blurb in the small round room that was stuck to the wall above a delightful book that the the two artists had put together as worked on this show. Malin’s paintings were done on canvas and Ricky’s were done on glass, old window panes in fact, and they are quite beautiful.

2 Comments

April 3, 2009August 26, 2019

Cold Call From India

Peggi had a few problems with her hard drive and before we ran the disc utility we confirmed that we had back-ups of everything. She found a bunch of photos from a few years back and we got sidetracked looking at them. The one above is of the main part of house getting redone by us before we moved in. We scraped the stalactite like textured ceiling off and we repainted and pretty much reworked the whole place. I love the way it looked back then (click the photo for full effect) and I’m wondering if we can go back there. It was such a blur at the time but it It looks like an art installation now. I’m glad I photographed it. Then again, I photograph just about everything.

Today started like most with a cold call from India. They wanted to talk to us about graphic design or something. I have very little patience for these guys and hung up on him. Next call was from a sweet sounding woman who wondered if we did the the little programs that they pass out at funerals. Despite the rotten economy I turned her down. I’m wondering if a listed phone number is still a good idea for a business.

Last week we did a quote for lawn care company. They wanted a logos for their trucks and business cards etc. I love doing logos but these guys had four letters in their name and they wanted graphics in each of the letters. I told them I didn’t think that was a good idea but I couldn’t talk them out of it. So we gave them a quote and never heard back. We do have work so I’m not worried yet. If it does get bad I’l hear one of these Indian guys out.

1 Comment

April 2, 2009August 26, 2019

Exactitude Is Not Truth

Four drawings-portraits perhaps - by Matisse in 1947 — Four drawings-portraits perhaps – by Matisse in 1947

I only have a few days left with the “Matisse Portraits” book that I checked out of the downtown library. I’m going to have to remove all the bookmarks and give it up. It is so jam packed with sensational drawings that it took me a few weeks before I could even read the copy. Peggi has been page turning Ann Rule’s “Every Breadth You Take” while I stare at drawings until I fall asleep.

Now that I have been able to get to some of the text I’m finding that Matisse is as articulate with words as he is with the brush. In an essay for the catalog for a collection of his work entitled “Exactitude Is Not Truth” (a Delacroix saying)he wrote,

“Among these drawings, which I have chosen with the greatest of care for this exhibition, are four drawings-portraits perhaps—done from my face as seen in a mirror. I should particularly like to call them to the visitors’ attention.

These drawings sum up, in my opinion, observations that I have made for many years about the charactcr of drawing, a character that does not depcnd on forms being copied exactly as they are in nature or on the patient assembling of exact details, but on the profound feeling of the artist before the objects that he has chosen, on which his attention is focussed, and whose spirit he has penetrated.”

It kills me how much volume Matisse gets in these line drawings. He devoted his life to careful observation of nature and dilligent hard work in order to make drawings look this easy.

Tap Tap Tap

This probably happens every year but if you’re not in the woods when it happens – you know what they say about hearing trees fall out there. At first glance we thought it might be sap pouring out of the trees, maybe even maple syrup, but these weren’t maple trees and the foam wasn’t sticky. Our friends, Pete and Shelley, spend a good bit of March “syrupping down” so it can’t just bubble out of the trees.