When I was growing up there was nothing but Catholics in my family but then my parents jumped ship and switched us to public schools and we really took advantage of the freedom. There were six of us before my youngest sister came along and I remember the thrill of entertaining “pagan” names for her. “Amy” won out and there was certainly no Saint Amy then. There may be now that the last pope named more saints than all others combined.
Two of my cousins became nuns, my aunt became a Jehovah’s Witness, Amy married into a Jewish family, Peggi’s sister did too and one of my brothers converted to Judaism. His oldest son had his bar mitzvah a few years ago. His youngest, shown in the middle above becomes a bar mitzvah tomorrow. This happens automatically upon turning 13 years old. No ceremony is needed but since the 15th century it became customary to mark the occasion by whooping it up. Further adventures into the melting pot have me playing my djembe behind Hebrew chanting at the Temple.
My painting show from the Little is all boxed up and today I took down my painting show at the Genesee Center for the Arts. So it’s time to move on and an excellent opportunity to re-evaluate what it is that I spend so much time painting. I am enjoying this process and considering wild alternatives like en plen air and abstraction.
In the meantime I was asked to paint a portrait for the Memory Projct. They sent me a photo of this kid, an orphan somewhere, and I did a few versions. The kid kid gets the painting. The one in the middle looks the most like him so I’m sending that off. Now what?
Jeff and Mary Kaye gave us an Amaryllis plant before they went to Mexico. It had just barley broken ground before they left. We put it in the center of our table and now, six weeks later or so, there are six huge flowers in bloomand two more on the way. I wasn’t sure how to spell Amaryllis so took a stab at it in Google and found a time lapse movie of what we saw but set to a Liz Phair song. Peggi isn’t awake yet so I watched this without the sound.
Latest “Crime Face painting. Painted from photo on Crimestoppers page of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.
Rome Celli did his annual client appreciation night at the Little Theatre tonight so we had our choice of five movies. We chose “Slumdog Millionaire, “Nixon & Frost” and “The Wrestler” in that order thinking it might be crowded and we might need aback up plan. We got into Slumdog and it was kinda predicable and corny but we really enjoyed it.
Rome had cookies and coffee for everyone after the movie and we ran into a couple we sort of know. They asked how I liked the movie and I said “I loved it”. (Peggi was in the bathroom). They said they were shocked at how bad it was. I said “Really? It wasn’t great but I liked it”. Then it became clear to to me by something they said that they were really affected by how bad the situation was for the kids in India. Peggi came back from the bathroom and said, “Wasn’t that a great movie?” These people were almost crying.
Across the room I saw a woman come in who, the last time I saw her, had asked me why I painted these people who had caused some much trouble in our community. I did not really want to have another discussion with her.
My painting teacher, Fred Lipp, went down to New York to see the Marlene Dumas show at the Modern. About half my class saw that show. Fred bought he book and brought it into class and my father said “I think Marlene is a disturbed individual” (based on her subject matter).
I am beginning to question whether I too spend too much time looking at the dark side. I already knew there was some incredible poverty in India. I thought that was a pretty light movie. And that Bollywood dance number certainly had nothing on “West Side Story”. I told Kathy Palokoff that I was going to start painting babies and she said, “Please don’t”.
“Science Fiction” by Ornette Coleman is one of my favorite album and I was thinking about this record last week when Bob Martin posted his top 25 lps on his Facebook page. We named our cat Ornette after seeing Coleman in NYC in 1998. I read in Jeff Spevak’s D&C blog that local trumpet star Paul Smoker and some of his Nazareth College students would perform interpretations of Ornette’s avant-garde classic album, Science Fiction on Sunday afternoon.
I got the lp out this morning so I could look at the liner notes and then I played a few of the tracks from our iTunes library. In Robert (Bob at the time) Palmer’s liner notes he says “Ornette’s music grabs you inside before you understand it intellectually.” That’s certainly how it got me and I still don’t understand it intellectually. He also says “To play this music, you have to step out of the mold your teachers taught you.” But this teacher is Paul Smoker!
So I made arrangements for Peggi to drop me off at the Atrium on the way out to her mom’s place. I sat down next to Greg Bell from “Jazz Rochester” as Paul Smoker introduced the lineup. There was only one Ornette piece in there, “Happy House”, and Paul told the crowd that they would be doing all Ornette later in the month at Nazareth. I had heard that there was a lot of inaccuracies and untruths in the blogospere but didn’t believe it until now. The band sounded great but I gave up some prime painting time to be here and Ornette is one of the few people I would do that for.
There was a discussion panel after the set and Paul Smoker said they would talk about, “Why we do what we do. Why do we keep beating our heads against the wall despite cultural indifference?” I had to leave to meet Peggi out front.
“Irondequoit ain’t just pretty. It’s my home.” Apologies to Bat McGrath and his “Naples” song. Bat was just in town for a house concert and we watched a few songs at the D&C’s website.
One of the prettiest sites in town these days is the town’s infrastructure installation over on 590. These things have been here all winter while construction on the four new traffic circles has been on halt. There are probably a hundred or so of these things over there of all shapes and sizes. I wonder if they are still going to call it 590.
There are a number of Irondequoit legends. One of them is about how the Kodak executives over in the Oakridge Drive area voted down the final leg of an expressway loop that would have crossed the northern edge of the town connecting the end of 590 with the northern end of 390 in Greece. I always thought it was pretty cool that 590, an expressway, dead ended at Marge’s. In fact we did a song about it on our Planetarium release.
I’ve been looking at these concrete structures all winter waiting for a sort of warm, hazy day to photograph them. They look particularly good with some snow around them but snow and sun make impossible to get the rich grays in these thing. I want to thank who ever is responsible for the installation. I’m not sure how long the show is running.
I was on my bike. In fact it’s visible in this photo. The only reason I am mentioning this is because of what happened on my way home. I came up behind three teenage girls who were walking home. One of them had bright red orange hair and it was course like Raggedy Ann’s. I didn’t want to get caught looking at them so I darted off the road down the embankment. Just as I did this I noticed the girls looking at me. My bike crumbled beneath me in the mud and I went over the handlebars. I tried to get up quickly but my handle bars were at an angle and my basket was all bent up. I hit my thigh on that post above the front wheel. It must have looked hilarious and I’m laughing as I type this even though my thigh hurts.
The Clarisa Room is no more but the old Shep’s Paradise is open as “Clarissa’s” and it is still a great sounding room for jazz. We were there last night for the open jam hosted by 1968 RL Thomas graduate, Mike Allen, aka “A King Of Soul”. These three horn players, probably Eastman School of Music students, were waiting to play “Love For Sale”. This is one comfortable bar and it was midnight before we knew it.
We were talking about Gap Mangione last night because the bass player from his big band was sitting in. Conversation turned to the Buffalo plane crash and the Chuck Mangione players that died there. We hadn’t heard from Gap in a while but he called today to request some changes to his web site. We did another quote today for a web site. We have a few out there. We could be busy again if all goes well
Found some more cans near a turn in the road on Hoffman today. We brought them home.
Spent a good part of the day trying to develop this template with vertical centering. I manage to get it working but I created a page that had no scroll bars in any browser. With Joe Tunis’s help, I got the scroolbars back but then lost the centering.
I say “I” but all I have done is search the web for help in executing this design. I wrote about this project a few days ago and Martin Edic sent me a link to a blog that had a great piece on vertical centering with css.
Watkins and The Rapiers bootleg group photo at the Little Theater Cafe
We were in the house last night for “Hat Night” with Watkins and the Rapiers at the Little Theater. Sue was was taking the official band photo while I butted in to grab this shot. It was also Haiku night and band members were on a role with pieces based on the celebrity paintings that are currently on view.
I had an appointment at the Hair Zoo this morning to discuss their web site. Stan the Man recommended us and I hope it works out. I parked right next to a Cadillac Escalade near a big sign that said “Walk In”. I tried walking in the front door and it was locked so I went around back. There was a guy there cleaning the windows. When he left, he turned to the people in the waiting room and said “I have feeling someone in this room is going to win the lottery today”. I guess you would have to play it to win it and I don’t even know where to go to buy those things. And how do you know if you win. Is that stuff in the paper? I probably should have gone out and bought a ticket.
We had received a couple of calls urging us to vote “yes” on the proposal to move the senior living facility on Pinegrove to the empty plaza across from Bishop Kearney. Hard to believe they would hold a special election on this but I guess it is a hot button issue. We went over to vote as a hoot and were surprised at how crowded t was. There were Irondequoit cops directing traffic in and out of the Town Hall. In class tonight Peggi’s yoga teacher, Jefferey, said we should have voted “No”.
I ran out of spray fixative, that nasty crap that you coat a charcoal drawing with so that it doesn’t smear. And it was Sunday and Rochester Art Supply is closed so I started calling around. Staples put me on hold for about ten minutes and Home Depot had never heard of the stuff. The bay bridge at the end of Culver is open in the winter so Webster was an option. Peggi wanted to look at some fabric so we headed out to Jo-Ann Fabrics.
We drove along the lake and turned up Baker Road toward the village. Most of Webster has been swallowed up with housing tracks and they are sprinkled between old farm houses so it makes them all the more depressing. There are still some open spaces and we spotted one on our left. There was someone out in a field struggling with a huge kite. I pulled over and we watched while this guy get the big red kite off the ground. And then he took off but never left the ground. He was wearing cross country skis and a helmet just in case. He traveled the length of this field in less than a minute.
Turns out we were looking at the Gosnell Big Woods Preserve, a 163 acre woods with oak, hickory and hemlock trees that are 350 years old. If we get some more snow we plan to head out here to ski the trails. I think we can manage without the wind propullsion.
The Ethnic Heritage ensemble showed up about 9:30 for an 8pm gig tonight at the Bop Shop Atrium. They were coming from Toronto and they got hung up at the border but the crowd stuck around. The band sauntered in like they weren’t even late and opened with a trance/chant tune on thumb piano with the lyrics, “Pharoah Sanders”. When we last saw these guys at the Jazz Fest in 2005, they did a similar piece called “Ornette Coleman”. All three played beautiul percussion at various times. Corey Wilkes, who also plays trumpet with the Art Ensemble, is an amazing player. Tom Kohn should have a great recording of this show.
I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to get the contents of a html/php page to stay centered vertically, as well as horizontally, no matter how big you open the browser window and no matter how much content is on the page. This used to be easy with tables but I’m trying to do it with CSS. I came awake early this morning thinking about this. I’ve been using bits and pieces of various people’s code to develop this thing. When I put paragraph returns or includes or just about ay more content into this this thing thing it all falls apart.
I am trying to come up with a template that I can use on the Refrigerator and other sites. The template has an include for the header, footer and Goggle ads (if I go that route) and I want to get the Google search bar in the header of each page. Yesterday I got the logo graphic (with its link) to change on a rollover with css so I don’t have to pile on that java script. I found a pretty cool trick here for that. And I still need to develop a Spry menu bar for the header so you can navigate the site. It has been getting so complicated that I keep wondering what exactly is wrong with one link on each page that goes back to an index page that has links for anywhere you might want to go on the site.
We were eatting dinner kind of early so Peggi could get to her yoga class and a big bird flew by our back window. It was a turkey and it landed in one of the trees down back. I grabbed my camera. When we come across them in the woods they are usually waddling along in groups of eight or so. They stand about four feet high. It seems like a miracle that these things can fly.
There was a new Crimestoppers page in the paper yesterday morning. I have it next to my scanner and I plan on scanning it so I can enlarge the pictures. I am getting much more comfortable with backing up and getting some distance between my eyes and my paintings. I need larger source material because I’m finding that I would like to see it and the piece I’m working on at the same time and both from a distance. I use to hold the small pictures in my hand and then turn to the canvas to paint. I resisted backing up because I was afraid of what I might see. I could only take so much.
Lately I’ve been drawing and painting with chalk (or a brush) taped to the end of a yardstick so I can maintain some distance and this is really helping. I am much less likely to get a great looking eye in the way wrong location. I wish I could get a hold of some bigger versions of these mug shots. They are only an inch and a half high in the newspaper and that’s with a 65 line screen and sloppy 4-color registration. They don’t get any better when I blow them up. Maybe I can talk the Sherriff’s Department into letting 4D do the Crimestoppers website so I can access to the original files.
We stopped in to see AMP at the Little last night and Sue Rogers came over to out table to tell me that there was a really interesting face on the Crimestopper page in the morning paper. She encouraged me to “go for it” in capturing the defiant expression on this one dude’s face. I’m not sure which one caught her eye but I really appreciate her enthusiasm.
We are taking care of two cats on our street while their owners are away. We visited both this afternoon There’s Dietrick at one end of the street and Puddles at the other. Maybe tomorrow I will photograph both for the Refrigerator.
Like most people in my painting class my father works on a number of paintings at the same time. We work paintings up to the point where we could use some feedback from the maestro and then set them aside before continuing. This one of Margaret Explosion is not done but it is getting close. My father based the painting on a photo he took off the tv when WXXI broadcast the Margaret Explosion episode of “On Stage.”
I stopped by to see Bob Martin yesterday in his second floor suite at Bob Martin Associates. He was working on one computer and uploading the Margaret Explosion WXXI video tracks to YouTube on another. I previewed them on our iTouch this morning when I got up. Some of the songs had zero plays when I checked in.
Budweiser 20 ounce cans found near side of the road
Keeping busy in the new economy is pretty easy. We spent most of the day yesterday trying to access our wireless access point at its default address. Our network just disappeared. Our Netgear MR814 wireless router lost its ability to broadcast a year ago but the Ethernet connections still worked so we bought a NetgearWG602 v3 Wireless Access Point and hooked it up to the MR814. That worked for about a year and now it has disappeared. Can’t even connect to it to re-set it up. I’m headed out to buy a new router and I’m hoping my purchase will stimulate the economy.
We took a walk up in the woods and came out on Hoffman Road where the town has just finished its infrastructure improvements to manage the wetlands that they inadvertently created when they allowed a housing project to go in off Titus. The Budweiser guy has been busy down here. He can drink and drive. I’m keeping his deposit.
Terry Zogby painting “Solar Eclipse” at the Highlands Senior Living facility
Matt SanFilippo wrote “Italian Power Forever” on his picture in my high school yearbook. I was looking forward to seeing him at our reunion but he didn’t show up. I have always had a soft spot for Italians. It is hard to believe the Italians let Mussolini and the Fascists take hold in their country. Fellini presents this dichotomy vividly in Amarcord while celebrating all things Italian. We watched the movie last night at Rick and Monica’s and I had another opportunity to confirm that this is still at the top of my all time favorites. The Nino Rota soundtrack is up there as well.
Earlier in the day Rick brought over an assortment of beers to thank me for recording his house concert last week. There was an Italian beer in there, Peroni. He invited us over for dinner so I brought the beer back over there and started with the Peroni. Rick made a neuvous Italian dish with cherry tomatoes. When we got back home we found that someone in Italy had ordered a Margaret Explosion cd from our site.
On the way out to Peggi’s mom’s place today we heard a song on Tom Hanson’s jazz show with the lyric, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. I’m still getting over Amarcord. Terry Zogby had a sensational new (2008) painting up in the hallway art gallery on the way in to the dining room.
Sound of Tomorrow hosts Heather and Ross at the Mez in Rochester, NY
We joined the staff at WXXI for a last minute pizza party celebrating the airing of the final show of the second season of “Sound Stage”, their locally produced, Elliot Spitzer’s payola refund funded series of local band performances. The Chesterfield Kings were barely audible on the wall mounted flat panels but they looked great in front of their Marshall stacks even when they were playing acoustic guitars. This was a preview of Sunday’s seven o’clock airing, a glimpse of tomorrow with a band that sounds like yesterday.
While we were there we managed to talk Jan Marshall, Scott Reagan and Sue into following us over to the Mez for a live Valentine’s Day podcast from SOT. The Sound of Tomorrow’s theme song sounds suspiciously and appropriately close to the Mystery Science Theater theme song. Scott Bradley, the guy with the trumpet, played keyboards and anchor, Chris Zajkowski of the Squires of the Subterrain played drums. The two of these guys sound like a whole orchestra. They were joined by a surprisingly funny Miché Fambro on a few songs. Miché came into town in the eighties and left town in the nineties. In between he lived in Ithaca, the Berkeley of the East, “long enough to want slap an NRA sticker on my car”.
Hosts Ross Johnson and Heather Zajkowski, the Babe with the Power, sat in chairs on stage reading from notes but mostly creating and going with the flow. Del Rivers and his buddy did some stand up comedy and Heather belly danced with her posse. Phil Marshall, who wrote some of the music on the brand new, Who Sell Out styled, “Squires of the Subterrain – Adventures in Radio Land, TV Land and the Blogospere” cd, was no show due to illness but the evening was perfectly delightful like an old fashioned radio broadcast.
I visited the SOT site and got sucked in to a hilarious review of David Bowie’s Glass Spider tour. The show we heard last night must still be in production because it is not up on their site yet. That’s probably why they call it “The Sound of Tomorrow”.
James, the owner of the alcohol free club with the best sounding room in the city, gave up trying to sell the Mez on Craigslist and has decided to stick out.
I realized a long time ago that Fred’s Lipp’s rules for painting can be applied to just about anything you do in life. There aren’t that many rules but just as you learn them, there are other rules to learn. Tonight I started with “draw the thing that you respond to” and that has opened up some doors.
Paul Dodd drawing currently on view in the Drawing Show at the Creative Workshop
OK, how many fundamentals are there anyway?
There is a drawing show at the Memorial Art Gallery now. Margaret Explosion played the opening. We scanned the show during our break and intend to get back over there before it leaves. I take a painting class with Fred Lipp at the Creative Workshop in the basement of the gallery. They have just put up a drawing show of students and teacher work. The kids drawings are the best.
I had a class last night and came away with another one of Fred Lipp’s fundamentals. Fred suggested that I start with what attracted me to the piece.
He asked, “What about the source material makes you want to paint it?” I didn’t have time to reply. He said, “I’m assuming you don’t just paint them because they are there”. I’m not entirely sure about that assumption. I have a high tolerance for the mundane. He was suggesting that I paint what it is that attracts me to the source. “Start with what it is that attracts you to this subject. Get that down first. And then ask what it is that the painting needs.”
This might be obvious to some people but I know I don’t do that. I ususlly start by trying to place the head on the page in the right proportions. And I certainly am not attarcted to a source because it has the right proportions. Turns out I’m getting in the way of my own paintings.
