Requires no words. Already supplied by Lou. “I want to spend it with you.”
Leave a commentPerfect Day
Shoe Armor
I had completely forgotten that I did the Landmark Society’s 75th year logo until we were signing in at their annual House and Garden Tour this afternoon. This year, their seventy-fifth, was the historic Mt. Hope and Highland neighborhood, the former Ellwanger and Barry Nursery which at one time was the largest nursery in the world. Nestled between Highland Hospital, Frederick Olmstead”s Highland Park and Mount Hope Cemetery where Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglas are buried the tour included Beaux Art, Arts & Crafts Bungalow, Gothic Revival, Italian Villa and a little Art Deco style homes. We started at the Lamberton Conservatory and finished up at both the Ellwanger and Barry homes. Thank god for the gay guys that have restored so many of these houses.
Leave a commentLadders Available Sunday
We started our First Friday art tour before anyone else last night. We were at the MAG savoring the last hours of the Matisse show and I don’t mean his grandson’s pottery. No one draws like Matisse. No one gets as much form and expression in line. Matisse is the master. Your very last last chance to see what I’m talking about is Sunday when the show closes.
This morning’s paper has an item that really isn’t news to those who live here. Despite being one of America’s most livable cities we are ranked third on the list of poverty rates in large metropolitan areas, just behind Detroit and Cleveland. Like I say, not news, but it came the morning after taking in “Upstate Girls” by Brenda Ann Kenneally at Visual Studies Workshop. Kenneally has secured a Guggenheim grant to continue exploring and visually docmenting the how and why of class inequity in America. A meaty project. Take a look at her photos.
In Synecdoche, Katherine Keener, playing Philip Seymour Hoffman’s wife, painted these mildly disturbing miniature pictures and at her openings everyone had to use magnifying glasses to view the art. I was reminded of that bit of absurdity last night at RoCo where the 6×6 show opened. Each piece, limit of six from each entrant, is six by six and every piece is 20 bucks with all proceeds going o Rochester Contemporary. But this year they go food to ceiling. You can hardly see the ones up top but hang. There were signs scattered about that read, “Ladders Available Sundy.”
Ladders Available Sunday.
And The Livin’ Is Easy
Summer is so short around here you really have to get a jump on the season. One sure fire way to get in the groove is to peddle down to Sea Breeze as we did a few days ago. Just keep in mind the ride down is a breeze and the uphill trip back takes some manpower.
The kids screaming on the amusement park rides is an integral part of the summer soundtrack. The boaters drifting through the channel between the bay and the lake have their own subculture going and the pier is a great place to play the voyeur. The choice between Bill Grey’s, Don’s Original and Vic & Irv’s is easy but then Don’s has some great chocolate almond custard for dessert. Although there used to be about fifty bars and speakeasies on the bay Marge’s is the only one left. If you go in here the day will be swallowed up. We mostly just stand around and look at the people.
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Basketball Diaries
I took this guy over to the Creative Workshop where he’ll be in a show that starts there next week. I have a new batch of crime faces to tidy up and photograph. Steve Black has invited me to show some drawings in Brooklyn this summer so I’ll have to get them framed and ready to travel.
I was buying the matt board for this one at Rochester Art Supply and Sally from High Falls Gallery was behind the counter with another guy. She asked if Armand had contacted me because he is putting a show together about prison in DC or somewhere and she recommended my work. The other guy asked what I did and Sally told him, “Paul paints local convicts and and I take all the bitterness and rage out of their faces.” That did not ring right but I left it at, “No, I didn’t hear from Armand.
I remember showing my six basketball players from the nineties at Cylinder Sound behind the Bug Jar and Dave Ripton, who was recording there, told me, “I’d like what your portraits would look like if they were on heroin.” That stuck with me.
This guy does look kinda sweet.
3 CommentsGraphic Living
It is no secret that the older you get, the closer together your medical appointments are. You need a good calendar to keep track of them all and someone to take notes. I am that someone, taking notes on my iPad when my father meets with his doctor. After our last visit we stopped by CVS to fill a new prescription and I picked up a New Yorker from the magazine stand while the pharmacist filled the order. I had already looked at the issue and took a chance that my father would like the long excerpt from Roz Chast’s brilliantly honest, graphic memoir on aging, Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?. I quietly checked back for a reaction and found my father almost doubled over with laughter.
After today’s appointment my father told me he had finished her book and it wasn’t pretty. He had seen the author on Charlie Rose and ordered the book. But I got the clear sense that he liked the book because he wanted to talk about it. That would be the dark comedy factor working. We have the book too and Peggi finished it the other night. She read whole sections aloud to me because they just couldn’t wait. Funny thing is Peggi’s mom used to say exactly that (title of the book) to us when we talked about something unpleasant.
1 CommentI Used To Chop Parsley
We don’t have any Mary Gauthier music but then everybody has YouTube so we watched a couple of videos. “I Drink” kicks ass and “Mercy Now,” in the same vein, sounded good so we headed out to the Lovin’ Cup to check her out. We were hoping she would be playing with the violin player from the video but that didn’t happen. Still Mary holds her own. She’s a real pro and part of the Nashville establishment now having just performed at the Opry. She has her work cut out for her to outdo “I Drink” but then, don’t we all have our work cut out for us?
Someone behind the bar was making a racket during her encore, “Mercy Now.” I was thinking it sounded like a woodpecker. Mary stopped the song and said, “I used to chop parsley.”
Leave a commentDetours In Space
We usually park off Lyell Ave. on Verona or one of those side streets that lead up to the soccer stadium but last night that section of Lyell was completely blocked off with flashing cop cars so we parked in front of Sanda’s Saloon. After the game we decided to cruise down Lake Avenue, Lou Graham style, but when we got to Lake and Ridge the intersection was blocked by firetruck. There were a few ambulances attending to bodies in the street and some cars in unusual positions so we had to take Dewy down toward the lake. On the way across Lakeshore Boulevard we ran into a barricade near the beach. Turns out they were holding the Soap Box Derby this weekend on that hill, the same one they used when I was a kid, so we took the aptly named Kings Highway up to Titus. It was the beautiful night for detours.
I can’t imagine a worse day for a lecture inside a darkened hall. It was gorgeous out today, crystal clear and warm, but Fred Lipp packed the place for his talk on space in the Bausch & Lomb room of the Memorial Art Gallery. The talk based on depicting space in two dimensions, was brilliant. Having helped with the visuals we found it invigorating and only felt somewhat cheated because Fred didn’t have as much time to go over the carefully chosen paintings as he did when he was putting the show together. At the end of the slideshow a gentleman in the back stood up, thanked Fred and reminded him that it was bright sun outside. Fred did not miss a beat and said, “But it is illuminated in here.”
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