Blue Spring flowers in marsh off Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York
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.
James T. Sturtevant paintings on display during First Friday in Rochester, New York
We decided to start with the Hungerford building this First Friday because we hadn’t been there in months and that building seems to be in a constant state of flux. We used to get large stats at R. A. Ellis back in the eighties when they had offices up there and Richard Edic had a wood shop up there when we got our kitchen remodeled and then I remember a great art show by Ann Havens in studio there. Today there must be a hundred artist’s lofts up there and you can really get bogged down rather than recharged if you don’t watch it.
Bleu Cease had emailed earlier in the day wondering if I would be interested in taking part in the summer Art Tent that RoCo will have setup in conjunction with the Party in the Park concert series. I thought about it for bit but still hadn’t found a workable plan so I told him I talk about it when stopped in RoCo to see the 6×6 show. Two of Peggi’s clown paintings had red dots on them and none of my six split headshots had sold so my first thought was Peggi should be the artist in the tent.
I was thinking I could take mugshot style photos like the ones I took at the Bug Jar in 1998. I’m trying to figure out how I could get people to sit for that. Maybe just the promise of putting their anonymous shot online or maybe I can round up a printer for the evening. Give one print to the sitter and put one on the tent wall.
Another thought would be to get people to sit for charcoal sketches, 5 or ten minute poses with a “may not look like you” disclaimer. Guess I could just give away the drawings.
I have my choice of the ten Thursday nights. I would probably pick the worst of the bands so the people would be interesting. Only trouble there would be deciding between Blues Traveler, Moe, Southside Johnny and John Brown’s Body.
We finished the night at the Little Theater Café listening to Grr, a drumless trio with great players and really interesting arrangements.
When our former neighbor, Leo, reached his nineties he really started spacing out. He lost track of everything and was always ringing our bell to ask if we knew where his tools were. In his heyday he could fix anything and made a point to help someone everyday. Near the end he had a pile of uncompleted projects and he was buying tools that he already had because he couldn’t remember where he put the the ones he had. There was a note from him stuck to the window near our door one morning that read, “I need some common sense.”
We used to plant vegetables in his garden and it was a joy to garden with him. He taught us how to hoe. I never really understood that simple tool but in his hands it was an ingenious instrument for weeding. No bending over to pull tiny weeds or ones that had grown bigger than our new plants in a few days times. The how is angled just right so it cuts the weeds or at least uproots them while dragging a small amount of earth over the blade and leaving it essentially right where it was. I always pictured a hoe as simply a tool to pull earth along so you could plant seeds in a trough or something but Leo used to sharpen his hoe so it cut like a knife.
He had a few hoes, one was a favorite and it was small. He looked everywhere for that hoe and was so desperate to find it that he good naturedly accused us of taking it. “Are you sure you don’t have my small hoe?” I took him in to our garage to look around and I spent a few hours looking for that thing in his yard. I can’t be sure but I think it was right in his garage. When I showed it to him he said, That’s not the one.”
Patriotic Budweiser beer cans in woods of Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York
A distinctive can tossed in the woods would certainly whet the appetite of a thirsty hiker. And if the can design was patriotic it would resonate with our sense of freedom as well as enhance the brand. A win win situation.
If you took a Sharpie and lightly touched your skin with it the black dot would be about the size of the nymph deer ticks that Peggi and I picked off of each other yesterday. Peggi took one to her doctor last week and she had it tested for Lyme Disease. The tick was not carrying it and thus far there have been no confirmed cases of ticks carrying Lyme disease in Monroe County but it is probably only a matter of time.
The ticks are so small we’ve been using this battery operated loop, a lighted magnifying glass with a focus dial that we used to use to inspect the registration of the rosette pattern on four color print jobs, to verify that the tiny black spot indeed have tiny legs. I couldn’t get a good look at one on my arm and feared that it had already burrowed in so I dug away at the spot with our tweezers until it was a bloody mess. I either removed a mole or an age spot and then put a band-aid on it.
Katie Boss Hostess paintings at High Falls Gallery
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.
I got frantic call from Duane yesterday. He was trying to work with a batch of videos that were sent to him on a pc formatted hard drive and he couldn’t change the permissions on the files to move them to his Mac. While we tried a few work arounds he mentioned that was going to be having dinner with Alan Vega that night when they celebrated Howard Thompson‘s birthday.
I started thinking about the time Peggi and I drove down to NYC after work to see them perform. We were just outside the city at about 10 pm when we stopped for gas. Jimmy Carter was president and the gas crisis was in full swing so we had a hard time finding a gas station that was open. We eventually ran out of gas and slept in our car in a gas station parking lot missing the show. Six months or so later we caught them at Max’s and it was unforgettable. They were so cool, so thrilling and dangerous sounding, they blew us away. We were sitting in one of those little tables up front and I was worried that Alan would pick our table to include in his menacing performance.
Duane posted this video of Suicide to his YouTube channel.
Leo Dodd presentation on Edmunds’ Woods in Brighton, New York
Cobbs Hill near the aptly titled Pinnacle Hill in Rochester, New York was named after Gideon Cobb, the quintessential pioneer and brick company proprietor in the Brighton neighborhood. Saturday was Gideon Cobb Day and about fifty people gathered in a lodge near Edmunds Woods for Leo Dodd’s presentation on the old-growth forest. The annual event was sponsored by Historic Brighton and a boxed lunch was included. The woods, an integral part of the old Edmunds farm, is now trapped between a suite of medical offices, parking lot, mosque, retention pond and expressway but it is a real gem with abundant wildlife.
The event started with a series of technical issues, first of which was helping my father find his glasses. They were in the side pocket of his car. My dad constructed the presentation in Keynote (Mac version of PowerPoint) and he transferred it to his iPad. The projector had a hard time recognizing the iPad so a restart was in order and then the wireless mic which my dad had charged up the night before wouldn’t work even though the red on light was lit. That turned out to be the “stand-by” position so that too was a relatively easy fix.
The first slide had an audio file on and I tried holding the iPad up to the speaker which only caused a screeching feedback loop. I was in charge of swiping the iPad to advance the slides while my father talked and I had a quite a time trying to anticipate when to swipe so he wouldn’t have to say, “next slide please” between each graphic. I jumped the gun a few times and had to go back and I clearly caught him off guard a few times as he looked back up at the screen and saw that I had already advanced the slide he was talking to. But the presentation was flawless on my dad’s part and thoroughly enjoyable. Afterwards he led a group out into the woods.
The Center for Youth Services on Monroe Avenue provides counseling, shelter and education to homeless kids in the Rochester area. The late Chuck Cuminale (aka Colorblind James) worked there and it is only fitting that a tradition Chuck started twenty seven years ago would be now be a benefit for the Center. Hunu, with core members of the Colorblind James Experience hosts guests performing Bob Dylan songs on or near Bob Dylan’s birthday which was cosmically near Dylan-soul-mate Chuck’s own birthday. I had the pleasure of accompanying Peggi Fournier last night on a rousing version of “She Belongs To Me.” Russ Lunn caught the performance on his cellphone.
June 3rd Correction: I just learned that Saturday’s show was not a benefit. The proceeds from this show pay Hunu’s studio rental for the whole year and allows them to do the big benefit they do at Christmas for the Center.
Privately we were calling our nephew’s NYC celebration “The Graduation Gout Tour” but that is really unfair. We ate at three very nicer restaurants in three days and never really felt overstuffed. Our graduate nephew’ brother works at NoMad and he picked “Blue Hill at Stone Barn.” The graduate picked Gramercy Park Tavern and of course we had to eat at our other nephew’s place, “NoMad.” Well, it’s not really his place but someday he’ll have one. He worked at “Animal” in LA and has worked his way up to sous chef at NoMad. I took snippets of movies of our nephews and their friend as we ate and then stitched them together last night.
Kind of funny that someone would ask the drummer what the time signature was of a song we did last night. Like I would have a clue.
We walk in the woods most days and aren’t very diligent about checking for ticks although we should be. I had one that Peggi picked off last year and yesterday Peggi found one on her arm. Peggi took our tick tweezers down to Jared’s house and he identified it as a nymph deer tick. He pulled it out by the head and we put it in a little bag to bring to Peggi’s doctor today.
We are really lucky to have a neighbor like Jared. His chemical engineering skills coupled with a farmer’s background make him a real “go to” source. How many guys do you know who could point to a spot on the ground behind the street pool property and then drop a tree in slow motion on the spot?
There are always high hopes for a Margaret Explosion performance but so much of it is in the cards, the work day, the crowd, the mood. Many factors are beyond our control and improvisation by it’s very nature is hit or miss. We try to stay open and explore the possibilities but you can’t beat a good melody to hang the song on and sometimes that don’t show up.
As a rule we sound best earlier in the evening on a night when very few people are there, we are all fresh and more receptive to each others parts, but the last three months have all been bonus nights (more money if the cash register total exceeds X amount). The crowd noise is an integral part of our sound and we’re happy to provide a soundtrack for stimulating conversations but when the place is full and the crowd noise infringes on the band (remember Ken’s stand-up bass has no amplification) we have learned a pretty cool trick. It doesn’t always work but we pull back the volume. I might leave the snare and just play hi-hat and Peggi or Bob will stop playing. The crowd immediately dials back the din knob and the music comes into focus.
Tonight is our last Little Theater show until September.
At dinner last night our nephew, Alex, made a joke about suicide and he motioned with his fingers across his wrist. Peggi and I pointed out that the proper direction is parallel with his wrist and later that night he reached into his sink and cut his wrist rather deeply on a broken wine glass. He spent the night in emergency. Meanwhile I reached into my bag at Duane’s and cut my thumb on a razor blade I had brought to shave with.
Duane suggested the Brian Eno installation on 32nd Street as our first stop of the day. We could have really settled in here on the cushy overstuffed sofas but it was just a little early to chill out. The show consisted of his ambient music, of course, and a symmetrical cluster of twelve monitors, three sets of four, each set a different size and each set showing the same slowly dissolving and appearing abstract imagery, hence “77 Million Paintings” title. We didn’t stay for them all, we had to meet Peggi’s sister in Chelsea.
The art galleries in Chelsea close for Memorial Day weekend and they will close again in August for summer vacation but some of the smaller galleries there were open for business. We found some interesting stuff and had a good time but dinner that night at NoMad was magic.
We swore we would never let that crazy, tension filled, last minute, dash for a train happen again but we pulled off a stunning repeat performance, running to the Fort Hamilton F stop in Brooklyn only to find people flooding out of the subway so we stood there for what seemed like forever. We got off at 34th Street and crammed on to a broken up escalator We were behind an Indian family with two small children who had to coaxed to move forward at every step. Up on the street we ran through the crowds in front of Macy’s and then down the steps in front of Madison Square Garden. I was thinking about the time Dave Mahoney and I hitchhiked down here to see Blind Faith at the old Madison Square Garden. We were the last ones on the train and they slammed the doors shut behind our lucky asses.
Don Voisine “View” at McKenzie Fine Art in the Lower East Side of Manhattan
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.
Monica stopped by early in the morning. I hadn’t even finished my first cup of coffee. She sat down and we chatted for awhile while Peggi attended to last minute details. We discussed the options for the quickest route downtown. There’s been all this traffic on Culver because of the construction on 104 so we decided to take 104 to Clinton. We got off the expressway at Clinton and the bridge was closed so got back on, went over the river and down Lake Avenue. It was jammed so Monica went back across the river and up Saint Paul, past the brewery to the train station. We were ten minutes late for the train to NYC and kind of upset at ourselves for not leaving earlier. But as luck would have the train was ten minutes late and still in the station.
We had tickets to the city but decided to get off in Tarrytown since that was going to be our destination for dinner anyway. We hung around the cute little town four hours, most of the time in a coffee shop, and then took a taxi up into the hills where “Blue Hill at Stone Barn” was located. Our nephew had graduated from Columbia Law School earlier in the day and his brother, a sous chef at NoMad, picked this spot. We started with a few rounds of amuse bouche and a horchata cocktail and then so many small courses I lost count. The birds were singing by the time we had settled in at Duane’s place in Brooklyn.
Paul Dodd charcoal drawing entitled “Model from Crime Page” 2013
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.
Japanese Bottle Brush growing in Jeff and MaryKaye’s yard in Rochester, New York
Before dinner at Jeff and Mary Kaye’s the other night we took a tour of the grounds. Jeff had offered us a redbud tree and we were planning on digging it up ourselves but Jeff already had our tree in a pot. Redbud trees drop seedlings and they are all over their yard. The flowers grow close to the branches in the early Spring and the trees skeletal winter profile becomes outlined in hot pink/red before the leaves come out.
Jeff and Mary Kaye live in the Genesee River valley between the river and the greenway and their soil is as rich as can be. Water in the basement rich. Our little redbud’s were drooping when we got it home but it has bounced back. We’re watering it like there is no tomorrow.
Frederick Douglas Resource Center in Rochester, New York
We stopped in the Frederick Douglas Resource Center on King Street on Rochester’s west side for a Black Power art exhibit on Saturday night but it turns out it was more than an art opening. The admission was fifteen bucks and we only had about fifteen minutes so we said we’d stop back. I love the building and all that they have done to one of Rochester’s oldest neighborhoods. Madison Park is looking good with the statue of Susan B. and Frederick as a center piece. Our friend, Shirley Zimmer, lived on King Street many years and the neighborhood looks a lot better than it did when used to visit her. I hope it is not just an illusion. I think this is the same street dj, Roger McCall was killed on when someone held him up.
Speaking of hold ups. My nephew was walking only a few blocks from his home in Brighton on Rochester’s east side when some guys pulled up next to him and his friend and asked if they knew aha time it was. Our nephew’s friend reached into his pocket to pull out his iPhone and the guys in the car pulled out a gun. They rode off with the phone.
“Model From Crime Page” drawing in progess in Fred Lipp’s painting class.
With lots of trial and error in my attempt to get the lines right in the bottom half of the enlargement of the drawing above I wound up with heavy handed clunkers. I played them down and had them thin but too much the same. My third attempt got them right on (as seen in the enlargement) but my painting teacher called me out on them again. I had focused so much on only the bottom half of the drawing that the lines were great but out of touch with the rest of the piece. They “had too much zip.” So I roughed them up to suit the gruff nature of this young lady.
I like this song because you can hear me setting up my drums while Peggi, Bob and Ken played most of the first number without me.
Copy of Sofia Loren painting at Nick’s Sea Breeze Inn in Rochester, New York
One of my favorite things to do is meeting my parents for dinner at Nick’s Sea Breeze Inn. Nick is always a delight, the food is good, we can usually get a table by the window and look out at the amusement park and the walls are covered with memorabilia. Nick went to high school with Scott LaFaro, the bassist in the Bill Evans Trio so there’s photos of him. Nick worked at club in Geneva, just outside of Rochester. It was on the circuit back in the day so there’s autographed pictures of Duke Ellington and Louie Armstrong and this wacky copy of a Sofia Loren painting.
My mom and I both ordered the manicotti last night and we were talking about the new Wegmans which was having it’s grand opening on Sunday. My dad asked if we wanted to stop in there so we drove up and had to park across the street. The big new parking lot is not big enough! It is pretty amazing that they were able to tear down the old store and half of that city block, build an entirely new store and reopen in three months time. The store looks great, like a European market, with a huge fresh fish department, bakery, and a staggering amount of prepared food from Sushi to macaroni salad. My mom and dad were picking out their Greek yogurt while we watched a toy train circle overhead. Funny, there was a toy train circling overhead at the trendy market cafe we ate at while we were in Barcelona last year.
Punching bag, hospital bed and chrome wheel at garage sale in Rochester, New York
We were to late to buy figs at the European Cheese Shop last week so made a point to get to the market earlier this week but first Peggi had to go to her yoga class. We stood in line for twenty minutes before scoring two bags. Next mandatory stop is Flour City Bakery where bought their last cranberry oatmeal cookie, a loaf of artisan bread and a giant sticky bun to split in the morning.
It was a beautiful Spring day, perfect for garage sailing, but all I wanted to do was get down to the basement and work on my drawings. We passed this scene on the way downtown and just had to stop on the way back to take a photo, a crazy garage sale featuring this goofy bed, a professional punching bag, a bay carrier and a chrome wheel.
