Category: Notes On Painting

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.

Marshes, wetlands, swamps are some of the most beautiful places on earth. The marsh down on Hoffman Road, one of the lowest elevation spots around here before the land gives way to Lake Ontario, is alive with bull frogs, snapping turtles, wild yellow Irises, buttercups and these beautiful Forget Me Nots.

Speaking of gorgeous landscapes Jim and Gail Thomas have a great little show in the 1570 Gallery at Valley Manor on East Avenue. Jim has a series of oil pastel drawings based on the ancient tree in Genesee Valley Park that recently split down the middle and Gail makes the local hills look like Cézanne’s work. Their “Shared Visions” rival the great outdoors in this sensational display.

I’m thinking about suiting up and going Ellen Altfest in the marsh.

I don’t like thinking about kids trying to knockout randomly chosen strangers with one punch (the Syracuse police chief described it as something out of “A Clockwork Orange”) or vandals spray painting one hundred year old saguaros in the Arizona desert and posting photos of their work on social media sites. Or how about that guy that shot up rock formations in the National Natural Landmark “Garden of the Gods” in Colorado Springs? But that’s what I get for reading the paper.

The Center at High Falls had an opening for their last show over the weekend. As usual the walls are jam packed in a democratic display of freedom. Sally and Roy have been perfect hosts here for many years but I have always found it hard to look at work in this hodge-podge of a space. It could be that the spectacular view of the falls from windows on the stone walls trumps anything on the walls. We would all be better off if the City opened a proper gallery space downtown with white walls and lighting in one its many empty buildings.

A couple of strong cups of coffee and into Manhattan to meet Peggi’s sister and our nephews but first we had to stop in the Lower East side to see a show of paintings by Don Voisine at McKenzie Fine Art. His work is exquisite so we spent some time here devouring it and talking with the owner. About a third of the paintings, mostly modest sized wood panels, had sold and she was wondering aloud whether she had pieced them high enough. She told us he sells mostly to other artist so she wanted to keep the prices affordable. I could have put one of the small ones in my bag for 1400 bucks. Voisine’s paintings are extremely flat, hard edged colors, mostly back, but the forms leap off the panels and are so far from flat we were laughing with delight. They are in playful dialog with Kazamir Malevich from the grave.

We hooked up with our nephews in SoHo and Andrew led the art hunt from there with his iPhone. We did the “Drawing Center” and “Artist’s Space” and then both Dia locations where we took in Walter DeMaria’s “Unbroken Kilometer” and stunning “Earth Room”, a huge SoHo loft filed with dirt.

The distinction is probably not even apparent but it is a big deal. And as big a deal as it is there are bigger distinctions to draw. I have been working toward creating a confrontational sense of drama with these characters, the “Models From Crime Page,” looking for clues as to which way the head is turning, which eye is lower, how the hair falls, which features are essential, which descriptors enhance and which to leave out, in an attempt to help me convey a clearer sense of form and a bigger presence but the police shot sources are so straight on they are begging me to take liberties and I am just now seeing it that way.

The commitment to depiction must be real. It must show in every mark. I would like to think the trail of development is laid out behind me in a pile of academic drawings and there is no going back but it will be forward in fits and starts. Just a moment to savor a successful drawing and time to move on with my eye as my guide.

My father was telling me he saw Charlie Rose’s interview with “W” and “Charlie couldn’t get him to admit to anything” but he did get him going on painting. “He’s one of us!” my dad said.

George told Charlie, “Right now I’m looking at your tie and thinking about how I would mix that color. So much for Bush’s black and white worldview.

The Jack-in-the-Pulpits are in full bloom in the woods now but you’ll have peak under the hood to see the red spadix (Jack) preaching away. Although it looks like a male plant they are unisexual.

By design our Wednesday painting class is always an adventure. The plan is only a starting point, the road is full of surprises and the goal stays just out of reach. Painting on the other days of the week can seem uneventful by comparison.

We missed two art shows this weekend. The post card invite to the Jim and Gail Thomas opening at Valley Manor got shoved under a pile of mail and Saturday’s Oxford Gallery group show was on our calendar but you have to look at that. I really wanted to see Janet Williams “Jesus Cleansing the Temple” painting.

Please Come To The Show.

That’s a small Jackson Pollack at the left of the blow-up above. Much more impressive is the Robert Motherwell painting in the center. It’s in the permanent collection at Syracuse’s Everson Museum and this kick-ass painting was done in 1969, the same year I was wallowing in the mud at Woodstock. The door on the right is not bad either.