Author: Paul

That wasn’t so bad, sitting in the Rochester Contemporary Art Tent at the Party in the Park in downtown Rochester. Watkins and the Rapiers sounded good opening for the opening band although I wished they would have played more of their originals than the covers. I don’t remember the second band and John Hyatt was easy enough to tune out. Two other artists were stationed in the tent. Pete Monacelli is already a good friend and it was a pleasure to get to know George Wegman’s work. The top notch RoCo staff (Bleu and Carly) were there, raising awareness, and they are a delight to hang with.

I tried my best to talk my way out of doing a portrait of a woman who liked my work, even told her it probably wouldn’t look like her but she insisted so I gave her my email address. The rain today will probably turn the dust in front of the ISquare Gallery into mud for tonight’s opening so wear appropriate footwear if venture out.

Zanne Brunner has organized a show of artists/musicians at I-Square Gallery in Irondequoit near the House of Guitars. It features artwork by six musicians and is entitled “Sights & Sounds II” It is a dusty storefront gallery in a strip mall near the House of Guitars, “dusty” because the whole area is being transformed into a Utopian town square thanks to a taxpayer funded PILOT Comida grant.

Peter Monacelli, Jaffe, Scott Regan, Steve Piper, Jed Curran, and I all have recent work in the show. I hung the ten drawings shown above from my ongoing “Models From Crime Page” series. There’s an opening on Friday night at 7PM that might involve some music.

Update: OK, I guess I was off the mark here, not even “often in error, never in doubt” like MX-80, more like “often in error, often in doubt.” Martin straightened me out with his comment below.

Bill Traylor was a master of placement of object on ground or substrate or laundry shirt cardboard or whatever he found to paint on. Perfectly placed to articulate and accentuate the gesture.

“Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts” at the American Folk Art Museum was the pinnacle of our New York jaunt. Apologies to Robert Irwin’s minimal effort at the Whitney and James Turrel’s maximal effort at the Guggenheim. Bill Traylor can knock you out with a drawing of a bird. Direct like punk rock but right on like a master, the 63 drawings and paintings in this show were all sensational. He does not miss a beat.

Painted from memories of his slave days or from observations of his free retirement years they are mostly “Untitled” but have been assigned names like “Man with Hatchet Chasing Pointing Man” or “Couple Arguing” or “Truncated Blue Man with Pipe.” They are all essentially flat but animated to leap off the page. I didn’t want to leave the show so I studied the books in the gift shop and then ordered one from Amazon.

The line in front of the Guggenheim was not moving and the sun was beating down but as soon as we adjusted to the scene on the sidewalk they let us all in. James Turrell has taken over the entire atrium and reworked the spiral center as undulating lopsided concentric circles of LED light. Bo Poulin told us we “must lie down” so of course we did and it was a better perspective. Your perception of depth gets lost and you are not sure what you looking at. A virtual drug experience for a clean and sober generation.

Turrel had work throughout the museum but what exactly was the work? In many cases there was only intense light, carefully projected onto walls or into corners so you felt as though you were seeing three dimensional forms or the reverse, portals to another world. I was blown away with a series of aquatint prints that Turrell had in one of the side galleries on the second floor. The white shapes in the drawings appeared to be backlit and three dimensional.