We slept with our windows open last night to take in the trilling coming from the pond next door. We ran into our neighbors out at the mailbox today and told them how much we enjoyed the sound. Jared told us there were about twenty five pairs of toads getting it down there. We had to for ourselves.
The males are usually smaller than the females and they are the ones that make all the noise. That’s how they attract the females. It works like a charm. The pond looks like a whore house with extra males calling and waiting their turn.
We are so lucky Peter Schjeldahl is still writing art criticism for The New Yorker. He enriches our lives with each column. I keep thinking eachwill be his last.
And how can it be that Roberta Smith, one of the sole art critic champions of Philip Guston’s late sixties work (at the time), can still be at the top of her game, writing for the New York Times. Alice Neel has been one of my favorite painters since I first laid eyes on her work. Neel is the subject of a retrospective and Ms. Smith knocks it out of the park with her review of the show.
“It is said that the future is female, and one can only hope. But it is important to remember that the past, through continuous excavation, is becoming more female all the time. The latest evidence is the gloriously relentless retrospective of Alice Neel (1900-1984), the radical realist painter of all things human.”
We saw a Alice Neel show in Chelsea at Zwirner in 2012 and a few paintings at the Met Breuer in 2016. And twenty years ago, at the last Neel retrospective at the Whitney, we ran into Chuck Close where he and the guy pushing his wheelchair were hogging our view of a Neel painting. I was getting upset at how long they were taking and then backed off when I realized it was Close.
The Eastman has a Maplethorpe portrait of Alice which they’ve pulled out a few times over the years. That is about as close as we can get to her in this town.
14 small black and white sketches for Stations of the Cross – Paul Dodd 2021
I reworked most of my small pencil sketches and then created these black and white versions of the fourteen Stations of the Cross. And I altered a few of these after taking this photo. I cut one of the plastic panels, I’ve had in the basement for so long, down to 14 x 17 and gave it a coat of Gesso. I plan to scale these drawings up and paint the panel in three colors, black, cream and a blood red.
William Keyser painting “Drift” at Main Street Arts
We drove out to Clifton Springs this afternoon to see the Diner’s Club show at Main Street Arts. Bradley Butler, the director, was editing a video of the artists in the show and had it posted to YouTube by the time we got back home. It was good to see so many red dots on the walls. Pandemic money finding its priorities.
The wildly diverse work, by Christina Bang, Paul Brandwein, Edward Buscemi, Tarrant Clements, Bob Conge, Kurt Feuerherm, Bill Hand, William Keyser, Susan Mandl, Peter Monacelli and George Wegman was hung shown in a mixed fashion not clustered by artist and is even richer than the sum of its parts.
Bill Keyser’s work, both sculpture and painting, certainly stands out in a crowd. I was particularly taken by “Drift.” Pete Monacelli’s drawings/paintings are multilayered mysteries. Ed Buscemi has a Carborundum print here that I would have taken home if wasn’t already sold. We marveled at Kurt Feuerherm’s metal bases for his animal sculptures, primitive masterpieces in their own rite. The show is an experience.
We probably won’t be able to watch as much television when this pandemic is over and that is probably a good thing. Maybe we can trim our programing bill. We’re finding some dynamite stuff on HBO. “Olive Kitterridge ” is the best thing we have seen since Breaking Bad. Our bass player, Ken Frank, turned us on to that one. Frances McDormand kills it and Richard Jenkins, who plays her husband, is sensational.
A few years back we rationalized getting an Apple Music subscription by looking at the monthly costs as the price of buying one album. Yesterday we streamed Pharaoh Sanders new one, his first in twenty years, and Archie Shepp’s duo with Jason Moran. It was the early seventies all over again and it felt good.
We put our third row of greens in this afternoon, a short row of arugula next to the spinach and butter crunch. We’ll plant more of each in a few weeks and work the Swiss chard, mesclun and kale in. We started some of this indoors last year but found the things we planted directly were more productive. It was warm enough today to break out the Cumbia records and have dinner on the porch.
We are in the middle of a soccer drought as La Liga is off for Holy Week. We knew this was coming so to tide us over we recorded a Sevilla match. They are in fourth place just behind Atletico, Barcelona and Real Madrid, our three favorite teams. It looked like Sevilla was going to lose 1-0 to Valladolid but in the last minute of stoppage time they pulled out all the stops, left their goal empty and guess who put the tying goal in the net. Bono, the Montreal born Moroccan goalie!
Peggi just finished re-reading Strangers on a Train. (I think that might still be her favorite movie. I haven’t checked in a while.) Peggi read Patricia Highsmith’s bio and passed that on to Louise. We watched the French version of the Talented Mr. Ripley a few days ago and found it much more exiting than the American one which we loved. We plan to watch that again tonight. And last night we rewatched Carol. I hardly remembered it but loved it this time.
I’ve already dumped this layout for Roman numeral 1 and I have a pad full of alternate versions for the others. I don’t usually do so many sketches before painting. I prefer to just jump right in especially when the medium is malleable. But I would like these 14 Stations to be either positive or negative and sometimes both with nothing in between. So I can’t just push paint around. The expression is in the shapes/forms of course but also in the edges.
I was born on the feast day of St. Paul of the Cross and feel destined to do a version of the Stations of the Cross. I started one in the mid nineties but I got bogged down in source material. I created digital composites of of my sources and generated 14 large ink jet prints which I hung in the Bug Jar during Lent 1998. I submitted “Passion Play” to the Finger Lakes exhibition in 1999 and won a couple of awards. This project has been on my mind for a long time and it has been thrilling work on it during Lent.
We’ve come across work by Eduardo Chillida in Spain and recently at Hauser Wirth in NYC and I started this project by doing a charcoal drawing based on one of his pieces. He is primarily a sculptor but I love his two dimensional work. When I’m happy with the sketches I’ll scale them up to fit these 14″ x 17″ plastic panels that I’ve been itching to paint on. I gues that means acrylic paint.
We couldn’t decide who this guy looks like. Sort of a cross between Michael McDonald and Ricky Nelson or maybe Brian Williams from Bobbie Henrie & The Goners. Someone had left a few Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets in the pocket of the information board in the park. “Please join us for the annual commemoration of the death of Jesus Christ. The date, time and location will be Saturday, March 27, 2021. Scan code for additional information.” That’s today!
Our lenten roses are in fact blooming on Palm Sunday.
High winds were forecast until 4 PM so we planned a route that would circle our house in case we had to run for cover. It was raining when we left and pouring before we got to the end of our street. A small stream of water was running along the edge of the road at the top of the big hill on Hoffman. It grew bigger on the way down. Jack Koffman was out at the road picking up his paper. We surprised him. He said, “It’s raining guys.”
There is a big drain across the street from him where the runoff goes down and then under the road before emptying into the creek. The creek was overflowing as it raced further toward the lake. Tom from Whispering Pines was out by the road in rain gear. He laughed and said, “You guys are hard core.” He pointed to the impromptu stream that was flowing across his property, run off from his son’s ATV tracks, and then to the drain that he had just freed up in hopes of keeping his yard from flooding.
By the time we got to the marsh the rain was letting up. We confirmed that it is just as pretty on a dark, wet, dreary day as it is on a sunny one. The birds didn’t seem to mind.
When the 4 o’clock hour passed we went out with a wheelbarrow and picked up sticks around the house. We use them for kindling and may just start a fire tonight now the temperature has dropped.
Carrol’s Bar on East Main Street in Rochester, NY 2001
When we lived in the city, Carrol’s was our corner bar. We’d walk up there just before noon on the 17th. Shamrock Jack’s is the closet Irish place to us now but that has gotten crazy. I think already had a huge tent set up in their parking lot last when everything shut down. You can’t beat crowds there so we looked for greener pastures.
Google Maps estimated it would take us an hour and seven minutes to walk to the Bayside in Webster. We called before leaving home and ordered two corned beef sandwiches to go. I put two beers in my pocket and Peggi and I celebrated Saint Patty’s at a picnic table overlooking the lake across the street from the restaurant. The McKeil Spirit was just pulling out of the Port of Rochester after dropping a load cement at Turning Point terminal. The sun came out while we we eating and turned the water turquoise.
We looked in on the premature post-pandemic scene at Shamrock Jack’s on our way back. The picnic tables in the parking lot looked safe but the bar was crowded and loud. A good place to test our vaccine but we moved on.
We learned yesterday that the last of the Tierneys has passed, my mom’s cousin, from the Maloney/Tierney side. We will toast her with some cherry water tonight.
We nit meeting around. We’ve picked some forsythia clipping at different stages and their yellow blossoms are popping in our living room. We brought home a few clippings of fragrant witch hazel and our house smells like butterscotch. We have our seed packets out and the little plastic pots. The garden season has begun. The red wing blackbirds are our official bird and they are back, the early arrivals anyway, atop the tall grasses and dead trees that surround the marsh. Their call stops us dead in our tracks.
So many funky places to live. We walked down to the bay and found clusters of homes we never noticed before. Places that you can only get to by foot and can only see when the trees are bare. Seneca Road dead ends here at the Newport Yacht Club, thankfully not as fancy as it sounds. Just to the south Titus Avenue winds its way down to the bay. You can see the last of the homes on that street from here but you can only get there by boat. And to the north Point Pleasant goes down a steep hill to a gated community of condos but the road splits off into the forever funky Schnackel Drive and the private access walkway that leads by foot only to at least ten more homes that line the shore. All these neighborhoods are a short walk and each one makes you feel like you’ve left town.
Exactly one year ago today we had two other couples over for dinner. In our house without masks! An event we had arranged at the Little Cafe where Margaret Explosion was playing that Wednesday, the night news broke that Tom Hanks and his wife had Covid. Our house guest, Steve Black, had just left that morning. We went into lockdown the next day. Fast forward in a year that somehow went both fast and slow and we are only one week from being fully vaccinated. That is we had our second jab one week ago.
“Oh Yeah” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on 11.13.19. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Phil Marshall – guitar, Paul Dodd – drums.3 Comments
We had a 3 o’clock appointment at Kathy’s house today to sit by the bay and watch the birds. Mostly gulls fishing at the edge of what’s left of the ice cover, but a few Junior Bald Eagles floated overhead. Kathy haunts estate sales, the tail end of them that is, when prices have been slashed, so she had a box of binoculars. Mine were made by Bushnell and Peggi found a Sears pair that worked for her. We spent most of our time looking at the houses on the other side in Webster. Some had staircases built into the hillside that descended five or six stories at least. The temperature was seventy when we left at five and the two hours felt like a mini vacation.
I feel like the ground hog in Punxsutawney at the beginning of February wondering if it is really safe to come out now that we have had the second dose of the Moderna vaccine. We are one step closer to feeling comfortable hanging out with vaccinated friends inside sans mask, playing with the band, visiting NYC or even traveling to Europe.
A handmade sign at Aman’s read “Face Masks 25% Off.” We walked home with another $2.99 bushel of apples and will make more apple sauce in the next few days. Peggi and I each got red peppers. Didn’t realize that til we got to the cash register. I was in the cooler picking out some Guinness for the upcoming holiday.
As I mentioned earlier we couldn’t decide who to root for when Real Madrid met Atlético Madrid. It turned out to be really easy. Atlético was on fire in the first half and they scored an early goal. Two star players were back in the line up, the Belgian Yannick Carrasco (injury) and Englishman Kieran Trippier (gambling suspension). The second half got tighter. I think Atlético was tired. Carlos Casemiro, the Brazilian, set up the Frenchman, Karim Benzema in the final minutes and tied it for Real. Final score as it should be Madrid 1, Madrid 1.
The ice formations on the lake are starting to recede and will go pretty fast with the 60 degree weather. I will miss it. It was the best winter ever.
We took a chance and cut up Horseshoe Road from the lake. We had a hunch that enough snow had melted (or evaporated) to allow us to walk across the golf course. In other seasons we take the trails in the woods that surround the rough. Today we followed the creek that runs down the middle of the fairways and and to my surprise we spotted a number of golf balls in it. I figured the water had to be warmer than the air (21 degrees) so I straddled the creek, rolled up my sleeves and stuck my arms in to pull six out of the mud. My wrists and hands were frozen. I left a few balls there for the next guy. I couldn’t even turn the key when we got back home.
Some friends of ours subscribe to the Criterion Channel and love it. It sounds so tempting. We have Netflix and a cable package that includes La Liga. Friends on the west coast have raved about “Painting With John” on HBO. And a friend on the east coast thinks we would like the dark comedy, Barry, on HBO and the mini-series “Olive Kitteridge” with Frances McDormand. So we added HBO to our arsenal. We’ve already binged our way through “Painting with John” and loved it. This really is the perfect pandemic show. It’s like zooming with a good friend and listening to his favorite stories, ones you know he has told a few times and some you have heard before. The music, his music, is great and I love his paintings!
When lockdown started last spring Jim Mott told us the birder crowd was bad about social-distancing. So desperate to see what others spotted they get right on top of each other and it spooked him. We stopped today to take in some sun while we looked out on the marsh off Hoffman Road. Our neighbor’s daughter walked by and we told her we thought we had seen our first Red-winged Blackbird. She told us she already had. My father was an avid birder and it is his birthday today. This is one of my favorite paintings of his. So descriptive. He perfectly animates the typical birder body type.
We got the new issue of the Historic Brighton newsletter this week. We did their website for many years. My father was one of the founders and the group now has a Leo Dodd Fund they use for preservation projects. They give out an annual Leo Dodd Heritage Preservation Award and this year it is going to Richard Miller for his work a volunteer caretaker of the Brighton Cemetery. At the end of Hoyt Place off Winton Road, the cemetery sits right next to the expressway, which in 1821, was the Erie Canal bed and when they moved the canal it became the subway line. And then the expressway.
Brighton Cemetery photo by Leo Dodd 2014 from his Flickr page
We wizzed by the cemetery on our way downtown yesterday. You can get a quick look of it from 490 before the trees fill in. The cemetery is older than Brighton or Rochester. The area’s earliest pioneers are buried here. Abner Buckland, Brighton’s brickyard owner, is buried here. Its two acres filled up a long time ago but today it is a pretty oasis full of history. With the help of the “Leo Dodd Fund,” Brighton Cemetery is now a designated landmark of the City of Rochester. A birthday gift to my father!
Albert Robbins, John Kavanaugh and Tony Patracca in front of original Pyramid Gallery on Monroe Avenue in Rochester, New York. Circa 1978
The last time I saw Tony Patracca was the opening of “Witness” at Rochester Contemporary. I’ve been following him on instagram but in mid July he went dark. He just popped back up again posting a photo of him in a wheelchair, recovering from a really bad accident. Here’s to a speedy recovery!
Tony is shown here standing in front of the first Pyramid art gallery space, this wedge of a brick building on the corner of Monroe and Marshall, across the street form the former Glass Onion (and before that Duffy’s Backstage where Miles Davis played in 1969, his first gig with his new quintet, Davis, Shorter, Corea, Holland and Johnette.)
I worked just down the street from this place at Multigraphics, a commercial art studio. It was called Carey Studios when I started there. They were in a brick building on Gibbs street that was torn down when the Eastman Library went up. I watched this little gallery space open in the old liquor store and would stop in on my lunch hour. It eventually became the Paper Store and today it is home to chef/restauranteur, Mark Cupolo’s Rella. Tony was the first director of the Pyramid which became Rochester Contemporary and 40 years later he is still on the Advisory Board.
Macy’s Modern furniture ad from 02.08.50 issue of New York Times
Maybe this is what old people do. Without a job you are left to fill your days as you please. And there are many rabbit holes out there. I recently posted a video of our old band performing “Heartbeat” at a concert at RIT in 1984 and the audio was a bit rough so I looked for a cassette recording the show. I had one but we had filled the cassette by the time we got to the second encore and Heartbeat was not on it. I found a cassette in that box from a show we did with Pylon at the Ritz but there wasn’t a date on it so I googled “Pylon Ritz NYC” and found a Stephen Holden review of the show from May 29, 1983. The review was not live text but a scan of the actual newspaper. I’m guessing we have access to this by subscribing to nyt.com.
It’s Peggi’s father’s birthday today so I looked up the front page of the paper for the day he was born. WW1 was still raging and there were no photographs in the paper at that time. The Committee for Democratic Control took out a half page ad that asks, “Do the People Want War?” It advances the notion that only Wall Street does.
I looked up Peggi’s birthdate next and found a Macy’s ad for Modern furniture. By the time of our birthdays the papers were full of photos and on my birthdate I found one of the Yankee’s manager, Casey Stengel, and catcher, Yogi Berra, arguing with the umpire in a game the Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox. And next to that photo a capsulized version of another New York team’s (the Giants) loss to the other Boston team (the Braves). Pitcher Warren Spahn, a favorite of mine when the team moved to Milwaukee, went nine innings and scored the game winning run after successfully bunting the tying run in.
Across from the sports page was a full page ad for Collier’s Magazine whose new issue featured an article about movie censorship. Westerns were being censured in some towns for too much violence, a comedy was banned because the star had divorced and a negro singing star’s scene was cut from a film because “there are plenty of good white singers.” A not so idyllic past.
We can see the sidewalks again. We wore our regular walking shoes, not the ones with the Stable-Icers strapped to the bottoms, and we used something other than our X-country ski muscles.
I had a hunch the winter aconites would be poking their yellow flower buds out of the snow so we took a peek at the hill out back. They are! Robins, also a symbol of pleasure, joy, contentment, satisfaction, clarity, rejuvenation, bright future and happiness, were excitedly pecking at red berries that somehow hung to the trees all winter waiting for them to return.
