There were only four people in Peggi’s yoga class last night. Maybe it was the weather or maybe it had something to do with Jeffery, the yoga teacher, going on a cruise for a few weeks. There were seven people in my painting class but that’s everyone who signed up for the winter session. It’s the slow time of year and that’s the way we like it.
We dropped my father off after class and Peggi and I went downtown to Danny’s Ball at Abilene. The Eastman 10, who were arrested for playing in the streets on election night, did a rousing version of “God Bless America” and the packed house went nuts. We had our long sleeve Obama t-shirts on.
Doctor Burns has his own Joesph Cornell in his office in Rochester, NY
“Frustration is one of the great things in art. Satisfaction is nothing”. Philip Guston told it like it is.
It’s physically tough too. I sprained my ankle a few weeks ago running down the stairs with a painting in my arms. And for months I’ve been watching this dry red patch between my thumb and forefinger get more and more irritated. It’s on the hand I hold my palette with. In the last week I noticed a funky odor when I brought my hand near my nose. I googled “skin oder” and found all sorts of skin cancer links and stories about animals becoming aware of their owner’s cancer before doctors. So I called my doctor and he got me right in.
He had a Joesph Cornell like box on his wall and I took a shot of it. I explained that my palette used to be painted white but I have worn the paint off over the years. My doctor prescribed a low level topical steroid ointment. He said it was probably a reaction to the chemicals in the plywood and suggested that I give my palette a new coat of paint. I thanked him and gave him a post card for my painting show.
Our nephew, Eli, had a school assignment to do a “Job Shadow” thing and he chose 4D Advertising to work with. He came over today and we had a number of typical projects lined up for him. I showed him a php page that we were working on that would call on an include for the navigation bar. I was trying to explain the concept and I asked him if he had a website. He took me to a FreeWeb site that he and his brothers had put up to feature their Legos Movies. His site was way cooler.
We had him sort receipts for about twenty minutes in preparation for our tax filing. And then I had him scan a notebook of Pete LaBonne’s Fish drawings for the Refrigerator. They have been sitting around since last winter. Eli cleaned up the scans in Photoshop, saved them for web and then uploaded the files. I helped him construct pages in Dreamweaver to display the drawings and we posted them. He put a “fish” link on the front of the Refrigerator so other people can find them.
I interviewed Eli before he left and he typed in these responses.
Eli, how was your day at 4D?
It was great!
What did you learn?
I learned how to add pictures online using dreamweaver.
Do you think you would like to do this kind of work when you are a little older?
Maybe..
I had to sign some paperwork while his mom stood by and I noticed the only
instruction he was given was “Be sure to dress and behave appropriately”. Eli had a black t-shirt that said “The Hives” on.
Our friend and neighbor, Rick Simpson, let us borrow “Stax/Volt Revue – Live in Norway” dvd. We watched it on the coldest night of the year (so far) and we couldn’t sit still. This is one amazing performance from openers, Booker T and the MGs, to Otis Redding. We loved Booker T on organ and Al Jackson on drums and Duck Dunn was a locomotive on bass. The same band backed all six artists on this tour. This show started hot and got hotter until it was almost out of control. Only the great Sam and Dave could take it down a few notches with “If Something Is Wrong With My Baby” and reach the high point of the show.
We had a nice dinner with Peggi’s mom last night and then the three of us headed off to Mercury Opera’s production of Puccini’s “Tosca”. It is sort of a love triangle where everybody dies. Peggi’s mom told us that much before dinner.
Peggi hung the handicapped tag on the rear view mirror and inched up to the front door of the Eastman Theater to drop off her mom. A car darted in front of us and a woman jumped out and told Peggi that we had just run a red light. It was probably green when started going through the intersection because we were only doing about three miles per hour. This opera crowd is tough.
I slipped my camera out in the first act, made sure the flash was off, all the while keeping the camera against my body and I held the camera under my chin for a few shots. The guy sitting next to me leaned over and said, “That’s very distracting”. I couldn’t tell what he said so I said, “What?” He said, “That’s very distracting”. He had an Australian accent and he looked a bit like Russell Crow so I put my camera in my lap.
The opening scene with an artist, his lover and and an escaped political prisoner all in a church had real potential but it was coming off cute. The sets were beautiful and creatively lit. The three main characters had great voices and strong stage presence.
Opera used to be public entertainment. Someone has stripped the entertainment from these sung plays. The focus is on the trained voices and opera people know the code for signaling their approval of the craft. But what about bringing this play to life so the audience can take their minds off their mink coats and manners?
And they should not have those stupid translations up above the stage. They are like the tags in an art gallery that tell you what your looking at or what the artist had for breakfast. Either everyone should learn Italian or the the opera should be sung in English.
View of frozen over Eastman Lake in Durand Eastman Park
When it is only nine degrees outside it’s warmer in the woods than it is out in the open. This cold view is looking north across Eastman Lake in Durand Eastman Park. There is a little spit of land on the horizon running east/west and beyond that is Lake Ontario and then Canada. At this point we turned around and went back home. Who knows, we might have discovered another country if we kept going.
Five Paul Dodd Crime Faces on the front wall of the Little Theatr Cafe
I found a Hawaii quarter in my pocket today. That completes my little green book. And it made me think of our brand new funky president.
We were going to drive down to New York this evening but we chickened out and called our host, Duane, to tell him we would not be making it. Martin Edic told us last night that Jet Blue had $49 dollar flights so we booked some for an upcoming weekend.
We skied up to the lake and around the ponds. We saw the Mayor of Durand and his posse. The mayor was drinking LaBatts from a can this time and he had a gun for measuring speed. He and his buddies were clocking each other on their sleds and listening to mellow instrumental music. It was eight degrees and sunny.
We checked online to see they had put anything in the Irondequoit Post about my painting show. They had and Peggi read it aloud. She got down to the end and read that I have a second opening on February 6. Only then did we realize we would be in New York City for my opening in Rochester. Jet Blue was very nice about switching the dates.
The first opening went well. I almost forgot that the walls are a burnt orange. Jaffe sat in with the band on piano. He told me, “I’ve seen some piddily ass artwork in here. This stuff is real”. I thought that was kind of funny.
I’m sitting over at Jerome’s Ignition while Igor looks at our car. It’s been making a clunking noise in the front end. This is already sounding like a Click and Clack episode. We are planning to drive to New York soon to see the Marlene Dumas show at the Modern and we are a little concerned about the thump. Igor didn’t see anything so he took it for a spin. When he got back he noticed that the lug nuts on our left front tire were loose. These guys are the best in the world. If only they had a wireless connection here.
I didn’t sleep very well last night and while I was awake I started worrying about my opening tomorrow night. Somebody was saying if I call it an “opening” that would not imply free food but if I call it an “opening reception” that would imply free food. I put “opening reception” on the post card so I stand to look like a cheapskate. I don’t really understand all the protocol of openings and what little I do understand I resist. For instance I can’t bring my own food or beverages in there because that’s their (not for profit) business. I could buy food from them and serve that for free but that’s part I don’t get.
Painting class started up again at the Creative Workshop and my father did some quick watercolor sketches from photos he took on Sunday night of Margaret Explosion on WXXI’s “OnStage”. I took this photo over his shoulder. I’m not sure that he spelled “Margaret ” right but I like the magic carpet under us.
We use the flower pot out front to gauge the fresh snow. Of course you would have to know how deep the pot is before you could make any meaningful calculation. We have about ten inches of fresh snow and the temperature to support it. Break time today will call for a ski in the woods.
“Sun is shining and the weather is sweet, yeah” – Bob Marley
We got some snow last night, enough for cross country skiing. We were downtown doing a few errands just before the front came in. We took Culver back home, traveling north toward the lake, and we had just crossed Ridge Road when I grabbed this shot. It looked like mountains out over the lake.
Jeff Munson and Mary Kaye had a few people over for dinner. Jeff made what he described as “a pile of food on a plate”. I was more like a work of art. Wine sizzled mussels in and out of the shell over polenta with baked turnips, kale, pear juiced squash all drenched in the wine/mussel/kale broth. Mary Kaye made tangerine sorbet and cookies for dessert.
It took us over an hour to get home but the ride was delicious too. It was snowing heavily, Peggi was doing 20 mph tops and I was looking out over the river. We got on the expressway near RIT but we couldn’t see the road at all so we got off and inched home on Winton and Culver.
I gotta remember to ask Jeff if he could grab a photo of that 84 Lumber sign out his way? Just a point blank shot of the round “84” up on the pole. Talk about works of art. Pick a number and make you own. It would look great in the “signs” secction on the Refrigerator.
Margaret Explosion performs tonight on WXXI TV’s “On Stage” at 7pm. We’re watching that Bill Jone’s place while we celebrate his birthday.
I know some people are cat people (like us) and some are dog people (like our neighbors, Rick and Monica) and others are are just not pet people at all (like my parents). And that’s what makes the world go ’round.
This is Stella and she makes my world go “round. We sat by the fire this morning and read the New York Times on our iPod Touch. I love the way some sites are optimized for this thing and I want like rework all our sites for this tiny device.
Not these mugs again. This is just a little show at a little gallery. In fact it’s called the “Little Cafe”. But it has taken me most of the week to get ready for it. I made some small changes to one of the paintings a few minutes ago and I’m supposed to meet Peter Monticelli there tomorrow morning at eight to hang the show. I never see eight AM. This requires setting the alarm.
I counted the lights when we played at the Little last week and I’m bringing one piece for each light. Five will go on front wall behind where the band sets up. I settled the order tonight by spreading them out in our living room. I had a different five lined up here until Peggi put her two cents in. She was right. I might shuffle a few more around again when I get there.
I emailed the Democrat & Chronicle, City News and the Irondequoit Press about the show and Linda Quinlan from the Irondequoit Press called to ask if she could do an interview. She stopped by and we looked at the paintings. She was really sweet. She said she “did everything but clean the floors” for the paper. We gave her some Yogi Tea. We don’t read the fortunes anymore. I doubt those Yogi Tea people are real yogis.
Zazie drawing of Peggi Fournier and Ken Frank playing with Margaret Explosion
I mentioned that I invited Sheriff Patrick O’Flynn to my opening of the CrimeStopper portraits. He emailed this morning that he was going to be in Albany earlier in the day but he said he would try to stop by. He said he was looking forward to seeing my paintings.
Jaffe, who played keyboards with Colorblind James for many years, sat in with Margaret Explosion last night at the Little. He fit right in and the band sounded pretty good. Five year old Zazsa, the daughter of Franzie Weldgen who has his art on the walls this month, danced for most of our set and then did drawings of the band. The one above is the drawing she did of Peggi with her sax and Ken with his stand up bass.
Scott Regan and Sue Rogers from WXXI were there and they reminded us that the audio from the Margaret Explosion performance on “On Stage” would be broadcast today at 6pm on WRUR and then Saturday at 3pm. The bad ass blue ray hi def picture and sound will be broadcast at seven on WXXI TV. I’m kind of afraid to look at myself in hi def. I had my eyes closed for most of the hour while we played.
I launched Audacity when the radio show started tonight and I grabbed the streaming signal from WXXI’s website. It’s the first time I’ve used the program and when I listened back I heard Peggi and her mom and I eatting dinner and commenting on the performance. Guess I left the mic input on.
Detail of postcard for upcoming show of recent Paul Dodd paintings
I numbered the backs of my paintings today so I can keep track of them. I plan to put half of this last batch in to a show at the Little Theater Cafe that opens next Wednesday, January 14th at 7pm and the other half in a show at the Printing and Book Arts Center that will open on February 6th.
The faces are all from recent Crimestoppers pages in the Democrat & Chronicle. I sent an invite to the Monroe County Sheriff and whoever it is that answers the mail at info@roccrimestoppers.com. I hope you can stop by for the opening party. You can preview the paintings here.
LOCAL CRIME FACES – RECENT PAINTINGS BY PAUL DODD
Show Is Split Between Two Locations
01.10.09 – 02.07.09 Little Theater Cafe
240 East Avenue Rochester NY
Opening Reception on Wednesday 01.14.09 7pm to 9:30pm
Margaret Explosion will play at 8pm
02.06.09 – 03.04.09 Printing and Book Arts Center
713 Monroe Avenue Rochester, NY
Opening Reception on Friday 02.06.09 7pm – 9pm
DJ Sam Patch will provide the music
Philip Guston painting entitled “Reverse” at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY
I’m reading a book by Musa Meyer, Philip Guston’s daughter, called “Night Studio”. Wow. There’s a good chunk of therapy in there. It is impossible to be a great artist and a good father. Philip Guston is no saint unless you redefine “saint”. And I do. Saints, to me, are heroes. They are not all good and that makes them more godlike. Philip Guston is the patron saint of existentialists.
His late paintings are his best. They blow me away. What more could you ask for in a painting? They are meaty as hell, ugly and beautiful at the same time. And heroic. The MAG in Rochester has one of the late paintings called “Reverse”. It’s a painting of the back of a stretched canvas leaning against a wall. There is an incredible sense of form like R. Crumb. Probably a white wall but not in Guston’s hands. This is a whole environment. There’s a bare bulb from his closet childhood and a chain swinging like the light has just been turned on. The confrontation has begun.
This is my favorite painting in the Memorial Art Gallery’s collection and it manages to get better each time I see it. The MAG has put it in the best spot in the whole place. Its almost has its own room. And there is even a bench across from it, not some dumb piece of art but a bench you can sit on. Look for this painting.
Russian Icons from the show at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester NY
We finally made it over to the Russian Icon show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY. We intended to go with Peggi’s mom but she hasn’t been getting around very well. Yesterday was the last day of the show and I was glad to see that it was really crowded.
I loved this piece, entitled “Archangel Deisis with Christ Emmanuel”, from about 1650-1700. It looks downright contemporary or at least from this century’s “seventies”. The youthful Christ in the center looks cocky and mischievous, his head full of big ideas. And the former top dogs, Archangels Michael and Gabriel, respectfully give it up with a dose of healthy suspicion.
You know how when you’re on vacation somewhere and there is a band playing and they aren’t anybody famous or anything but they sound so damn good that you really dig the music even if it’s Neil Diamond or Van Morrison? The songs are all covers but they are chosen so tastefully from the world’s giant fake book that you get to just sit back and enjoy the music. Mike Allen at the Mez last night went south of the border and down to Brazil even. He channeled Ray Charles and Ertha Kitt. He and his four octave keyboard are a one man band with really cool arrangements. I felt like we were on vacation.
Peggi and I were talking to Mike after the show and he told us he has a cd of his band playing “The Dictionary” teen center in Webster in 1965. I went to high school with Mike Allen and he was in a working band back then. I’m dying to hear this.
Peggi made soup for dinner with the leftover vegetables that we had cut up for our New Year’s party and then we went right back to work. It looked like it was going to be a pretty quiet Friday night until Rick Simpson called. He wondered if we wanted to watch “Tropic Thunder” with him and Monica at about eight. When we arrived across the street they were both in the basement playing pool and they challenged Peggi and me to a game of 8-Ball. We took turns choosing records for the turntable and went from Leonard Cohen to the Minutemen to Patsy Cline while they won two out of three games.
We were getting pretty silly by the time the movie started so the fake coming attractions really threw me. Ben Stiller’s idea of the actors not knowing if they were acting or really involved in a war was a good one but they could have saved a ton of money on actor’s fees and skipped the damn special effects altogether. They didn’t need Jack Black to play a Jack Black-like character or Nick Nolte to play a Nick Nolte-like character or Tom Cruise to get so made up it didn’t even have to be his expensive self on the set in the first place. Most of the characters were just straight men for the sensational Michael Downey Jr.
We stayed up past four on New Years Eve and were pretty spaced out for New Year’s Day so we sat around most of the day. We caught the dramatic scene in “To Kill A Mocking Bird” where Atticus shoots the rabid dog and I remembered that I had a huge crush on the tomboy, Scout, when I first saw this movie. She was played by Mary Badham and she lost the supporting actress Oscar to Patty Duke to Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker) that year (1962).
We don’t have cable tv but my mother-in-law does and she likes Fox News. So it is pretty jarring walking in on programming like this. Sometimes I forget that the world has gone over the top.
We previewed the dinner menu on the flyer by the tv and I set my sites on the “Chicken Parm”. We headed down the halls to the dining room and walked slowly by the residents art that hangs outside the dining room. Peggi’s mom sked what I thought of this painting of asparagus by E. T. Zogby and I said, “I love it”. Peggi’s mom laughed and said , “I figured you would like this”.
Asparagus painting by E. T. Zogby
Peggi’s mom likes art and used to volunteer at the Detroit Institute of the Arts but she is always mystified by modern art and used to try to get me to explain why I like it. The best I could do was say, “It’s fun to look at”. She wrestled with the whole concept whenever we went to an art gallery and usually left frustrated. So I thought it was pretty cute that she knew I would like this painting and she didn’t seem bothered by it anymore. I feel like we are getting somewhere.
Suzanne, the dining room manager, stopped by to say hi and we started chatting. We said something about playing and she flashed on our old band, the Scorgie’s days, and realized why she always thought we looked so familiar. She was friends with Andrea Kohler and eventually married Jeff, the bass player in the Cliches. We always thought she looked pretty familiar too. It’s nice to know I have a connection to get my art work on the walls when I move out here in my senior years.
