Here we were on Route 414, just south of Lodi between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes, with a carload full of pea pods.
Leave a commentClosed Sunday
Going Clear
According to our neighbor, Jared, his wife is suffering from postpartum depression after releasing the Monarch butterfly she had nurtured from the caterpillar stage. For years my mother-in-law gave us a subscription to National Geographic. We have a whole yellow spine shelf and I really should know the Monarch story. Maybe it just has to be real for me to learn. I thought they migrated from Mexico to Canada and back and they do as a group but individually they don’t live long long enough to make the journey. They go through three or four life cycles on the way.
Milkweeds are key to the butterflies existence. They lay their eggs on the blossom. The caterpillars eat the milkweed leaves and the crawl inside themselves to create a chrysalis which eventually turns transparent before the Monarch emerges. It is all rather mind-blowing.
1 CommentState Of The City
This art installation stopped us dead in our tracks. The unlikely setting a Wegmans parking lot. The tipped over shopping carts and the yellow caution tape surrounding the bent pole were all rather alarming. Was this a crime scene being preserved? We asked one of the orange-suited “helping Hands” and he told us a guy was doing about fifty in the parking lot and he slammed into the Handicapped sign.
1 CommentShrooming
With a little bit to a lot of rain everyday we have perfect mushroom growing conditions. Our walk in the woods last evening was interrupted by samples of several species. I think we finally spotted the Chanterelles that we were looking for last week. We were told they grow near the Coral mushrooms and that’s right where we found them. They are supposed to be delicious.
We spotted the one above in a clearing and took this shot with a flash. I sent it to my father and he identified it from one of his many resource books as a Yellow Amanita Muscaria. It’s poisonous but it has some serious Psychoactive properties. There is so much mushroom lore to sift through. I found this description on Shroomery.org. “Used correctly, it is pleasurable at its worst and limitlessly creative, intensely ecstatic, universally beneficial and incredibly healing at its best! You’ll probably puke all over the place, so be prepared!” And this from erowid.org “the experience I was having was a simulation of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. I understood that I had to keep pounding these nails out of an invisible cross which I was nailed to. I would be free once the task was completed.”
We buy our mushrooms at Wegmans.
2 CommentsDe Kooning, Bacon and Gorky
Every time we see Jim and Gail Thomas, at art openings or Little Theater gigs, we talk about getting together. We bought one of Jim’s pieces, a near life-size figurative charcoal drawing, at Gallery 15, which at the time (2001) was the best gallery in the city. Jim and Gail ran the place and had one memorable show after the other of local art stars’ work. We moved to a new home/studio around the same time they were building a new home/studio and we would compare notes when we met. It is easy to get Jim going when you talk art. And is there really any better topic? He taught at RIT for 31 years and knows his stuff. Jim has a keen eye and has bought some beautiful pieces of work from others.
From light sculptures to big oil paintings and pastel still life abstractions, Jim’s work is always derived from the figure. He says he is influenced by De Kooning, Bacon and Gorky. That is enough to chew on. It was such a pleasure to see their place and talk over lunch. Jim plays tuba in the New Horizons Band and has work at the R Gallery in their current group show.
3 CommentsUnlocking The Truth
The next generation is secured.
Leave a commentSound Sculpture
Summer First Fridays in Rochester, like art scenes everywhere this time of year, are low gear affairs. The warm nights are more suited to watching low riders than stretching your mind. We started with that fantastic, red lentil, sweet potato dish at Good Luck. A monster thunderstorm rolled in and out before we finished. Fela Kuti was playing on the sound system in the bathroom. If this is what the kitchen staff are running on, that would explain why the food is so good.
So attendance was down at the galleries but that is not necessarily a bad thing. We were able to engage with the artists at every stop.
Nathan Lyons steals the show over at Spectrum Gallery with his color photos. If you are able to call up his images you’ll note they are usually black and white. At first encounter you read the photos literally. Funny signs, odd situations and crazy juxtapositions of elements that define our time. All are important elements but the compositions are painterly strokes of brilliance.
Jim Thomas had a mini retrospective next door at r Gallery, everything from his light sculptures to charcoal figure studies and abstracted stones in oil pastel. The exhibition featured the work of friends and colleagues associated with RIT so Judd Williams and Bill Keyser were featured as well. We chatted with Scott McCarney and Bo Poulin and headed over to RoCo for their annual State of the City show. Bleu appointed Peggi and me as this month’s “First Friday Fanatics.” I tried to refuse but the honor comes with a gift certificate to Victoire so we reconsidered. We really liked this show. A video performance group captures the outsider/insider take on Detroit. You can walk under a wild assortment of objects found on the streets of Manhattan by Laura Quattrocchi and then marvel at Ron Klein’s beautiful wall installation of both natural and man-made found objects. It is something you’ll have to immerse yourself in before the summer is over.
We parked over on Scio Street and on the wall to the car we heard indestinguishable music bouncing off the downtown buildings. It was either coming from the Puerto Rican Festival or the outdoor Donna the Buffalo concert. It was so abstract it sounded like one of Eno’s soundtracks or perhaps a sound sculpture for First Friday.
1 CommentJohnny Harmonica
An older man who lives about a block away was out near the road when we peddled by on our bikes. He had an armload of sticks that had fallen in the rain. (We had four inches according to Jared’s rainometer.) He asked if we needed any sticks, a question meant to be funny, but one we both considered. We collect our own sticks and keep them in barrels. We use them as kindling to get fires in our wood stove going in the winter months. He asked, “What are your names again?” as if we had been introduced but we have only waved to one another over the years.
He told us his name was John and some people call him “Johnny Harmonica” because he plays the instrument in a band. In fact they had a gig that afternoon at Saint Ann’s Home. He said he doesn’t do his own lawn anymore, hadn’t mowed it himself in five years, and the service he has charges him extra if they have to pick up sticks. Johnny said his lawn is mostly weed grass now and he doesn’t care. He’s ninety-four and says, “I used to fuss with it but it’s green and that’s all that matters now.” He said he is never sure whether he has even eaten breakfast so he checks the sink and if he finds dirty dishes in there he knows he has eaten.
We told him we played instruments too and his eyes lit up when Peggi told him she played the sax. He said he played in a big band, one with a sax and violin player, and he uses a pickup so he can be heard.
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