My father emailed to thank me for helping him put their awnings up yesterday. It was a beautiful day and I really enjoyed it. Every Spring we put three awnings up on their porch and every Fall we take them back down. My father calls this the “Awning Ritual.”
3 CommentsBulletproof
Last time Steve Black was visiting from Singapore I remember showing him the “Road Masks” I was working on. They wound up on the wall at Tap & Mallet for a few years and now I think it’s in the owner’s back room. Steve called the other day and he’s been on my mind. I was working on some layouts for an ice cream company around that time and I had spray painted some lids and containers from ice cream we bought at Tops. I had spread out some newspapers to do the spraying on and when I was done I feel in love with the way the papers looked with the white holes and colorful sprayed paint. I cropped and mounted four of them under glass Steve really liked them too. He kept saying, “They’re bulletproof, they’re bulletproof”.
I recently submitted a ten six by six watercolors to RoCo’s annual 6X6 show. I cut mask out of white cardboard and held it over a bunch of 9×12 paintings I had done of crime faces. They were all ones that were finished but I wasn’t crazy about them so I cropped out sections that I liked. When I was done I put the mask done on my work table found this “bulletproof” image looking out at me.
3 CommentsMeat & Beat
The willow tree in the picture above has fallen over but there are enough roots still in the ground to send nourishment to the hundreds of shoots, or branches really, that are growing upward out of its side. We were saddened to hear that Poly Styrene had died of cancer. Her band was so much fun for that brief period. Her smart lyrics and the saxophone were the perfect antidote to the punks. “I Am A Poseur”. My brother in law has cancer and the neighbor’s granddaughter has a brain tumor. We’re all pre-cancerous if we don’t have it already. This fallen willow got me thinking about all this.
I was looking for a replacement window for the skylight that came with our house. The one we have leaks or it used to. I thought it was the roof leaking and I caulked between almost every shingle up there before I realized it was the aluminum seal around the window itself. By that time the wood frame had rotted so I called Velux and determined that they still make our model. I got price from Lowes and then one from Home Depot. Home Depot told me they would match Lowes price and then take 10% off that. So we drove out to Lowes, got he quote in writing and took it to Home Depot. I did this routine once before but I can’t remember what it was I was buying. The clerk at Home Depot had to get special permission to mark the price down and we watched him type “Meat & Beat Competitor” into his computer terminal before he gave us the bill.
I like Home Depot better. They must be hungrier in their race with Lowes but their sales staff seems friendlier and they are very helpful. The Lowes Sore near us is bigger and cleaner with fewer customers. Home Depot is always hopping with contractors and works and of course do-it-tourselfers like us. The store is funkier and more comfortable. Today we saw a a customer having his lunch in the plumbing aisle.
Leave a commentFool On The Hill
You know how nosey neighbors can be, always speculating about somebody else’s business. The house at the top of the hill in the photo above wasn’t even there when we moved here a few years ago and now it’s for sale. Zillow says their asking 300k and the place doesn’t even have a driveway. Neighbors say it went into foreclosure.
At the edges of the enlargement of the photo above you can see the hill dropping off on both sides, as steeply as it does in the front. We could not believe our eyes when they started building on this lot. Doesn’t the town of Irondequoit have “steep slopes” and “setback”regulations? Did money change hands here or was the town so desperate to increase the tax base that they gave this guy a pass? We hadn’t even set eyes on the owner and we were already calling him “The fool on the hill” but we’re really the fools because this was a beautiful hill on a gorgeous strip of land before they built this modern monstrosity on top of it.
Funniest thing about all of this is I haven’t found a beer can since this guy moved out. We used to haul home twenty at a time from the spot by the creek directly across from his house. We ran into him a few times with the bags of 20 ouncers and we asked if he had any idea who the hops head was. Could it be we found Mister Budweiser?
1 CommentI Miss My Mouse
I found this photo in my photo library on our iPad. I’m at least three years behind in photographing my paintings. Our addresses, contacts, email and photos all sync effortlessly with our desktop machines and we use theiPad for just about everything. Everything but productivity that is. Unless you count reading, surfing, listening to music or streaming movies as a productive activity. I kind of like typing on the thing.
Who would have guessed that it would take an heroic effort to crop and scale a photo to a particular pixel dimension like 450 x200 for example? As an experiment I tried a few apps like “Crop For Free” and then bought “Photogene” for $2.99 but that didn’t let me crop and scale which is one activity in Photoshop. So I bought FilterStorm and that does the trick in two steps. I saved two versions (the cropped version you see above and the full shot but in a scaled down size for the blowup) of the original photo back to my photo library and inserted them here. When I say “here” I should say I am in the WordPress app because I can’t even reach my photo library from the WP admin panel at my site in Safari. Not sure why that is but it acts like a limited version of Safari.
So I managed to do a post from the iPad but I’m exhausted. I still haven’t plugged in the $29 Camera Connection Kit but that would allow me to reach photos on my camera from the iPad and post to this site through the WP app. I’s all pretty amazing really.
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Good Bad
About twenty years ago or so Kim sent us a book called “Thrift Store Paintings” by Jim Shaw. It was a pretty cool collection of good bad paintings and it turned out Jim Shaw was the nephew of Peggi’s parents best friends, the Gardners.
Danny from Abilene has a pretty cool collection of thrift store paintings at his bar downtown so when we spotted this painting this morning in a household sale on Queensboro in Rochester I took a photo and emailed it to him. I could just as easily have alerted Marie Via or Clair Marziotti whose collections were featured in a Democrat & Chronicle article on bad art but if they scooped it up I wouldn’t be able to visit it as often. Jack Wanderman, Susan Plunket’s brother, was organizing the sale and asking $65 for the painting. We were there to visit some of Peggi’s mom’s stuff one last time. Jack has been putting her stuff in household sales around town.
Leave a commentIn Like A Lamb
It was sixty something today but we still have a few pockets of snow and I’m happy about that. If there is one thing that really bothers me it is when Spring comes roaring in like a lion. Winter is a test of of metal and we fail the test if we give up on it. It makes us stronger when we give in to it and it makes Spring all the more dramatic when it unveils itself. Besides I like the minimalist palette of grey brown with small touches of color.
Leave a commentDrummer Jokes
My friend Brad, also a drummer, usually has a good drummer joke when we talk but I haven’t heard any in while. We watched a Nilsson documentary a while back and I really enjoyed it. I was not a fan but I am now. Too bad he’s dead. I thought our friend and neighbor Rick would have some of his records on vinyl but the only one he had was “Sandman.” It’s a very odd record with song titles like “Jesus Christ You’re Tall,” “How To Write A Song,” “The Flying Saucer Song,” “Hear’s Why I Didn’t Go To Work Today,” and “I’ll Take A Tango.” The first lines of that last song are “Deep down in my soul I hate rock and roll. And I don’t like the way that them drummers beat on them drums. They always hum along, out of tune.” That hit home for me.
Oh well, there is always painting. There must be some good painter jokes? We saw a show of Richard Butler’s (lead singer in the Psychedelic Furs) paintings in Chelsea on Saturday. I really liked this portrait.
1 CommentExpressionists & Expressionism
A note written on the back of a business card next to a full pot of coffee read “Out for bagels, Be back soon.” I hadn’t even finished my PopWars entry when Duane returned with a brown bag full. He got on his computer in the back room and told me I had some of the best typos on my blog. I had written “we opened the widow” in that morning’s post. I can’t spell and I depend on spellcheck so I often use the wrong word because, hey, it doesn’t have a red line under it.
We are not members of MoMA so we had to wait until Sunday to see the “German Expressionism”show when it opened to the public. The museum’s staff staged a dramatic presentation of these powerful, graphic works, mostly prints but some paintings, mounted on grey walls interspersed with deep red, yellow green and mustard sections with the usually offending curator’s notes on colors to match the walls. These details are important in a show with 250 mostly small, mostly black and white works on paper. They come off with a bang.
Otto Dix’s “The War” etchings filled a red wall with updated versions of Goya’s “Disasters of War.” Max Beckman’s 1917 painting, “Descent From The Cross” uses Christ’s crucifixion as a metaphor for war. Kathie Kollowitz’s heart wrenching woodcuts from her series called “War” stand as a timeless display of the emotional costs of war. If they were as powerful as they look we would all learn something from them before heading off to war. None of this work is as grizzly as I’ve made it out to be. Nolde, Egon and Kirchner, all giants of German Expressionism, have a masterly ability to cut to the chase.
We had looked a the “MoMA Abstract Expressionism” iPad app so many times I felt as though we had already seen the show but nothing can prepare you for the impact of these monumental paintings in the flesh. Kline, Motherwell, Rothko, Newman, Pollack, Gottlieb and Guston transformed the art world in the last century and their impact is still being felt.
1 CommentI Love My Country
Our car still sports an “Obama” sticker and we parked right next to this guy at the post office today. Politics is a rough business and we don’t have any guns so I guess this guy wins. Our car mechanic listens to Rush and our sticker still gets him all riled up. We had a repairman over here the other day and the first thing he said when we opened the door was, “So how’s Obama working out for you now?” Would it be less controversial if we had a McCain/Palin sticker? I guess most people keep their voting preferences private.
Leave a commentLent Specials
“An Osteria is an Italian-style eating establishment, similar to a tavern, usually in the country, less formal than a ristorante or trattoria, where wine is served as the main attraction and tasty food is prepared to come along with it. The service is casual, wine is sold by the decanter rather than the bottle, prices are low, and the emphasis is on a steady clientele rather than on haute cuisine.
Clients become regulars at Osteria because their tastes and preferences become known, and they become part of the family. The food is modest but plentiful, mostly following regional and local recipes, often served by the owner or his family members on common tables, warm and personal.”
I copied all that from Wikipedia and pasted it here because it perfectly describes “Osteria Restaurant overlooking Lake Ontario on Culver Road in Rochester. We had the homemade Ricotta Raviolis last with a spicy calamari appetizer (two kinds of peppers and green and Calamata olives). Now that Peggi is on the cholesterol meds we plan to continue with our ongoing Italian Restaurant exploration.
The photo above (gotta click the photo above to see the full shot) is the last one I took with my brand new Nikon P7000. I packaged it up today and sent it back to Nikon. It’s two months old and I’ve had this intermittent problem since I got it. The lens covers doesn’t fully open when I turn it on so my photos look like they were taken with a Lomo. Not entirely bad but a Lomo would have been a lot cheaper. Turns out this is a pretty common problem. I contacted Nikon and they told me to send it in on my dime. I paid sixteen bucks to send a brand new camera back. Grrrr.
Leave a commentGreen Death Knell
Winter is getting away from us. The death knell is the Saint Patrick Day decorations that are going up all over. I took this photo while driving through downtown Rochester in Friday morning’s snowstorm. Most of that snow has already melted.
Leave a commentWendell’s Castle
We got a personal invite from Heather Erwin so we started First Friday at her place. Met an up and coming photo journalist there and told him I thought photo journalism was getting better. This opinion is only based on the number of photos I’ve cut out of the newspaper lately.
We cut through the creepy leather store in Anderson Alley and stopped in the Bop Shop. I had tried to download Billy Bang’s newest, “A Prayer For Peace”, but it wasn’t in the iTunes store and I thought I’d pick up the cd here but they were sold out. Like any good record store Rick made a persuasive argument for picking up another cd, “Tara’s Song” by Ahmed Abullah who used to play trumpet with Sun Ra. His band does two beautiful versions of Ra tunes and a amazing cover of Ornette’s “Lonely Woman.”
Onward to Record Archive where Lucinda Storms showed some brand new luscious Valentines Day paintings. Stan Merrell was onstage playing a therimin. Alayna offered us Genny Bock Beer and we settled in for some free ranging conversation. Rick Simpson who had earlier tried to sell me a down jacket that he picked up at Eddie Bauer for forty bucks and was now trying to sell the coat to Jeff Spevak. Jeff’s dad had just died and he wrote a beautiful piece on him. Stan and Brian Williams tried to help me find the black and white mode on my new Nikon and I bought one of the Dick Storm’s appropriation t-shirts. He did a tempting Warhol VU banana one but I went for the bright green “Archive Rock Beer” shirt.
It was only fitting that Wendell Castle would be holding court when we got to Rochester Contemporary for the Makers/Mentors show featuring his work. Perhaps Rochester’s most successful artist, he has influenced a generation of woodworkers.
We were looking at the other makers’ armor art with Martha O’Connor when Martha exclaimed, “Of course!” It dawned on her that Nancy, Wendell’s wife, had certainly crafted these dwarf sized amour suits to hang in their “castle.”
We discussed going to Abilene for the Spampinato Brothers but had spotted a beautiful black and white snow scene painting on the First Friday website so we headed off to a place called the Living Room Cafe on Monroe Avenue. Perfect name! A small crowd was watching “Reality Bites” on a projection tv. The screen was pulled down over some of the paintings that we had come to see but this place was comfortable. We were offered a free cup of coffee and stuck around for the rest of the movie.
1 CommentPerfect Day
When you get as far as the lake there is no choice but to turn around. We crossed paths with another skier this morning. He stopped long enough to say, “Perfect day!” We agreed.
Snow days were better when they came out of the blue. They take all the fun out it now with sensational hype and no more accuracy than they ever had. When the weather guys are wrong everyone gets bummed. We didn’t get the “Storm of the Century” last night but we got a few inches and Wegmans got their run on. I’m not complaining. It was a perfect day.
1 CommentOld Modern
At some point in every visit to Ithaca I think back to the time we drove home in a snowstorm that was so bad I had to open the car door to look down and make sure we were still on the road. And the time Personal Effects opened for Grandmaster Flash at the Haunt. Grandmaster performed their hit, “White Lines” (Don’t Do It), after doing it in the dressing room. And the first time we played there, outdoors in a meadow on Cornell’s campus, we walked down the huge hill into town and ate at the Moosewood Café.
This time we parked in town near the Commons and we walked up the huge hill to the Johnson Museum on Cornell’s campus where the “75 Years of the American Abstract Artists” show had just opened. Mondrian, Ad Reinhardt, Fernand Leger and contemporary artists like Matthew Delegat (photo above). I’m guessing his “War Monochromes” was painted right on the wall for this show as the date for the piece reads 2007-2011. Abstract paintings look so modern still yet seventy five years is a good chunk of time.
I like Rich Stim’s new abstract video.
We watched “The Art of the Steal” last night, a documentary on the Barnes Foundation’s struggle to keep it’s art from the clutches of the greedy art forces. We were there a few years ago and the place was like heaven for an art lover. I expected the movie to present a better argument for moving these jewels to a more accessible location but the title pretty much says it all. A more sensational movie would examine how it is that one guy, Mr. Barnes, could have such incredible taste to go out there and buy work directly from artists like Modigliani and Matisse in “real time” as they say.
2 CommentsGrrrr
I like graffiti but it certainly has it limits and that’s why they call it graffiti. Some idiot has marked a well traveled path around the ponds and through the park with these yellow markings. The yellow looks like Rust-oleum’s “Sunburst Yellow” and the little rectangles are sort of intriguing. Small touches of color take on monumental proportions in the grey/brown landscape. But this group marked the trail over and over again on straight-aways where there could be no confusion as to which way to go. All this so a bunch of idiots can follow each other through the park in some sort of race on paths that others take every day? Grrrr.
I know County Executive Maggie Brooks has her hands full reigning in the free spending, cigar smoking, strip club going public works employees but I bet somebody knows who did this. We could make a citizen’s arrest.
2 CommentsHoller And Clap
Jim Heally is a fountain of film knowledge and a great interviewer. He held his own with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and I’m sorry he left the Eastman House. I trust he is on to greener pastures. Last night was Members Night (free admission) and the last night of the Dydren’s Rock ‘n Roll series. They showed a beautiful print with a newly re-mastered soundtrack of “The Last Waltz” and Kyle Westphal, Chief Projectionist, did a great job of introducing the movie. I think they have found a worthy replacement over there as Kyle delivered the goods without notes, sometimes with his eyes closed like a improvising musician.
The Last Waltz has aged well. In fact the further down the road we get from it’s making the better this thing looks but then The Band always seemed a band out of time. That Big Pink album knocked me out when it came out. Garth Hudson’s organ on “Chest Fever”, Richard Manual’s take on “Long Black Veil”, Levon Helm’s sensational drumming and singing on “The Weight”. It was impossible to pick a favorite song (or a favorite vocalist) on that lp just like it is in the movie.
Dylan pulls the plug on “Forever Young”, just to show his old back up band who the boss is. Joni Mitchell sings otherworldly back up to Neil Young on the Band’s version of “Helpless”. And then Joni with her beautiful buck teeth belting out “Coyote.” Van Morrison kicking out the jams, a sincere, often funny performance. Dr. John gets down in a hurry with wicked version of “Such a Night.” Muddy Waters does a killer performance of “I’m A Man.” Like Buddy Guy in Scorcese’s “Shine A Light”, Muddy Waters made The Band look like toy musicians. These performances are so good you want to holler and clap at the end like you would at a concert. My favorite song in the movie was “The Weight” with the Staple Singers but I could easily be swayed.
2 CommentsJimi & Keith
The George Eastman House has a world famous collection of films in their vaults and they screened a rare print of Joe Boyd’s 1973 film “Jimi Hendrix” last night. Made just three years after Hendrix’s death there wasn’t time for revisionist history and the interviews with Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton still show signs of jealousy. Lou Reed pretty much gives it up for Jimi, about as much as he can. And in the film Jimi gives it up for Bob Dylan with an incredible performance of of “Like A Rollin Stone.”
I left Woodstock before Hendrix performed because Dave thought we were going to starve and I’ll never let him forget that decision even though he is dead. I did get to see Hendrix in Indianapolis in 1969 with Dave’s ex, Kim. I sort of remember losing my brown shoes in a cemetery before the show. And what I mostly remember from the show is Hendrix flipping the bird to the fat cops who stood with their arms crossed in front of the stage.
There is some jaw dropping performances in the film like 1967’s black and white performance of “Purple Haze” at London’s Marque Club and Jimi in a TV studio playing 12 string against a white seamless backdrop. You can see why there hasn’t been another Hendrix movie since. They could never outdo the real thing and this is as close as it gets. I was transfixed by Jimi’s longtime girlfriend, Fayne Pridgon. She has a major role in this film and she was so engaging I came home and googled her but didn’t come up with much. Guess I’ll have to rent the dvd for more.
Peggi’s almost done with Keith Richards’ book and then I’ll set down my Guston book to dive in. There is only one more film left in the Eastman’s “Rock n’ Roll” series, next Wednesday’s showing of the “The Last Waltz.”
Leave a commentNod To Jobs
Can’t remember how I first came across Milton Rogovin’s Buffalo photos. They really hit home with me and I painted a picture of Rogovin and his wife, Anne, in 2003. The Pyramid Art Gallery hosted a traveling show of his work around that time and I met him there and gave him a print of my painting. His wife had just died at that point and now Milton is dead at 101. There’s a nice slideshow of his photos on the Times’ site.
We took Sam Jones out to the Apple Store on Saturday before Steve Jobs announced his decision to step down for a bit. Sam was wearing his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt and his Buffalo Bills jacket. His iPad kept trying to restart while he was using it. The store was mobbed and we waited in line to make an appointment with a genius. Sam gave the woman in a blue shirt his email address and about five minutes later a friendly guy in a blue shirt came over to help us. He scrolled through Sam’s ten pages of game app icons and said, “This looks like it’s been dropped.” Sam said, “Oh yeah. I’ve dropped it a bunch of times.” I cringed but the Apple guy smiled and said. “Breakage isn’t covered in your warranty but I’ll see what I can do.” Sam walked out with a new iPad.
I’m definitely a long time Apple fanboy. When my father bought his Mac II in the late eighties we used to go over there to set type and we eventually bought our own Mac II. We’ve probably had one of almost every model they’ve made since. Well I guess we never had a “toilet seat” and we don’t have an Airbook and we don’t have an iPhone but I wouldn’t leave home without my iTouch. Just by looking at Steve Jobs I would say he has a lot to do with their elegantly designed products. I don’t get that confident feeling by looking at the other execs. I hope he gets well soon.
Nod doesn’t play out that often and I was bummed that we missed them on Saturday at Abilene.
Fox Or Coyote?
There was an article in National Geographic about wolves mating with dogs and coyotes but it didn’t mention foxes. One of our neighbors took these shots with a surveillance camera he set up in the woods behind his house. I guess the camera takes a shot even in low light when it senses movement. There has been some debate as to whether this is a fox or a coyote. I did an Google image search for “fox” and this guy doesn’t look as good as any of them. Try it for yourself – “fox”. I’m going with coyote.
7 Comments