June 2009 – Page 2

June 7, 2009August 24, 2019

6×6 On 6/6

There are only a few sunny spots on our property. We are surrounded by trees and deer and that’s the way we like it. But we also like to grow vegetables so we’ve carved out spots in our neighbor’s gardens to plant tomatoes, peppers, basil, eggplant and squash. We spent a few days fortifying our neighbor, Leo’s fence and then just to hedge our bets we put tomatoes and peppers in down at Jared’s. Leo has a few rows of things he planted but he can’t remember what the seeds were so we’ve been watering them and taking guesses as to what the little seedlings look like.

The 6×6 opening at RoCo was mobbed. There was a long line of buyers and lots of red dots. Everything is $20 and they are available on line as of Monday. Someone managed to get all three thousand pieces in this movie. Peggi and I found ours at around the 4 minute mark.

Two Cellos & A Laptop

Summers used to be slow. Now they are jam packed. It’s a conspiracy of some sort and it forces difficult decisions. We already missed the Wiener Dog Parade and the Soap Box Derby. Last night was another First Friday already.

We started with the Arena Group’s show at the AGR space. A section of their show was set aside for the Orphan Project Portraits and I had one in there. Someday the kid I painted will get his portrait. Probably won’t even look like that anymore. We went across the street to the BookSmart space for a show of digital photography prints. Is there any other kind? Richard Edic’s “Fallen Willow” triptych on gold leaf was stunning.

Next stop was the “Asymmetrical Press” show at the Genesee Center for the Arts. They printed the first Hi-Techs single for Dick Storms and the only full color version of the Refrigerator for the Montage Festival. Both pieces were in the show! Peggi and I shared a Genny product and talked to a brewery employee about the name change (back to “Genesee Brewery”). She told us the iconic “Jenny” was still alive. Baby Shivers Boutique, with Chuck Cuminale’s son on guitar, played in the middle of room. They had a cute little cello player but you could hardly hear her behind the Fender amps. The drummer only played two drums and contributed to their off beatness.

Brian Peterson suggested an opening at Potential Life so we drove over there with Olga and were just in time to catch a the tail end of a beautiful performance by two cello players flanking a guy with spiky hair and a laptop. I was quickly mesmerized. The next band combined goth with Gregorian chant, German vocals and strummed bass through an army of sound processing boxes. We never made it over to Hungerford Hall for Jon Gary’s band but I did wind up with a sound hangover. There is a lot of music in art spaces these days.

Into That Good Night

Ornette does not look too happy. This is obvious and it makes us unhappy. He has always been a raucous rebel rouser. He started losing weight so we took him to the vet but without a battery of tests the checkup was inconclusive and the likely problems would all require invasive costly procedures. He just had his twelfth birthday and it’s the end of the line for this little guy.

He used to demand to go out in the morning and I’d watch him march across the street to make his rounds. Now he sits in the sun rather than relentlessly tracking down anything that moves. His left eye is clouding up and he has new spots on his nose. He’s all bones and getting wobbly, a long ways from his cocky sway. We used to have a hell of a time getting him in at night but now I just walk out to his favorite spot and pick him up. Yet he still purrs when I sling him over my shoulder.

Our ninety year old next door neighbor told us he was just waiting to join his wife who died about five years ago. He says he doesn’t understand why he’s still here. A former dentist, he showed me his two front teeth. He had just glued them together with Ducco cement. I was trying to imagine what the fumes were like. They were stuck together all right but he could wiggle them both in unison.

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June 2, 2009August 24, 2019

My Whole Life’s A Vacation

This duck couple looks pretty happy over in Spring Valley.

Last week Fed Lipp passed out copies of a Wolf Kahn interview from an Art Institute of Chicago publication. Both Fred and Kahn studied there but at different times. I didn’t know anything about Kahn but this interview was so concise and action packed that that I went to learn more.

His paintings, mostly bold New England landscapes in high-key colors, are painted from memory and they walk a line between abstraction and representational. They fit Horace’s definition of the purpose of art. They “inform and delight”. Kahn was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, he studied with Hans Hoffmann and he took Charlie Parker home from the Five Spot when he was messed up. He also wrote a book called,” Wolf Kahn’s America” which I plan to look for in the library as soon as Jerome’s Ignition finishes with our car’s oil change. Still no wireless over here but the waiting room couldn’t be more pleasant.

Kahn, in his eighties now, spends ten hours a day, seven days a week in his studio in lower Manhattan. Summers are spent in West Brattleboro, Vermont where he says he has become “the court painter to the to the chamber music establishment” due to the nearby Marlboro Festival. “Up in Vermont, they understand there is such a thing as culture, not just agriculture.” He considers himself “one of the fortunate people of the world” and “a workaholic”. When asked where he spends his vacation, he says, “My whole life’s a vacation”.

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