Tag: Leo Dodd

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Off Premise Backup Strategies

Footprints in my parent's driveway from thief
Footprints in my parent’s driveway from thief

We don’t set the alarm and often wake up with a phone call. This morning it was my cousin’s wife calling to say she found my parent’s garage door open while she walking her dog. My parents asked us to keep an eye on their place while the were out of town and this didn’t seem right. We suggested she call 911 and we headed over there. The cops were already there by the time we got there and sure enough someone had broken in. They (one or two guys) tried the neighbor’s place first and they stepped in some fresh turned earth near their window and then they tracked these prints across my parent’s driveway.

They used a bar to bust open the back door and smashed a window to unlatch the dead bolt but we couldn’t find the glass pieces. Suction cups? Took the glass with them? And the glass that the cops did find was from a car window. They thought maybe the thief (thieves) had stolen another car to get to my parent’s house and pieces fell off their clothes. They took a couple of Cokes out of the refrigerator and left them in my father’s computer room and one of them took a big, loose shit in their toilet and he didn’t flush it. They went through every cupboard and took what they could get rid of in a hurry. So there was an empty tv stand and a pile of cords behind the desk where the computer was and to my surprise the backup drives were still there so I hope to do a full restore when my dad gets his next computer. Oh, and they put all the stuff in my parent’s car and drove off with the loot. Green Honda Accord with a peace sign on it.

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Welfare Of Humanity

Monroe County Almshouse built in 1930
Monroe County Almshouse built in 1930

Leo Dodd, past president of the Historic Brighton, bought us tickets to their group’s tour of Monroe Community Hospital in West Brighton. We had helped the group out with their website and this was a thank you. We took Peggi’s mom along. They provided a box lunch and a slide show/lecture on the many homes in the area that helped with the Underground Railroad effort in the early 1800s. And then we toured the hospital.

Originally built in 1826 as the Monroe County Almshouse, they had 75 residents and a staff of two. The beautiful new building, constructed in 1930, has 566 residents and a staff of 700! The residents used to grow their own food and provide for the upkeep of the facility. There must be other reasons for the narrowing resident-to-staff ratio but I can only guess. Thomas Boyd, Rochester’s first black architect, designed the place and it is so beautiful that critics started calling it “the million dollar poor house”.

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That’s My Dad

Orchard in front of the Stone Tolan House in Rochester, NY painted by Leo Dodd
Orchard in front of the Stone Tolan House in Rochester, NY painted by Leo Dodd

My father likes to say he “can’t talk without a pencil” and it is pretty much true. Armed with a pencil he talks better than anyone I know. He knocked this painting off in our last class and it knocks me out. It’s a sketch of the orchard in front of the Stone Tolan House on East Avenue and it was done from a sketch in one of his many sketch books.

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Jungle Extraordinaire

Leo Dodd painting of Magaret Explosion on WXXI TV
Leo Dodd painting of Magaret Explosion on WXXI TV

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.

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Magic Carpet

Margaret Explosion watercolor by Leo Dodd
Margaret Explosion watercolor by Leo Dodd

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.

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American Vs European Impressionism

Raoul Dufy painting "Race Track at Saint-Cloud" from the Memorial Art Gallery of Rochester
Raoul Dufy painting “Race Track at Saint-Cloud” from the Memorial Art Gallery of Rochester

I didn’t even know there was an American Impressionism movement but the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester has mounted a show in the main gallery of such paintings from the Phillips Collection. It is not my cup of tea and I do like tea. My favorite of late is Yogi Tea “Green Tea Rejuvenation”. And I love the European Impressionists.

The MAG has a beautiful small show at the same time in the Lockhart Gallery of Impressionist Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection. Don’t miss this show. There are some real beauties in there that are not normally on display. The Raoul Dufy painting above reminded me of Leo Dodd’s paintings. The Europeans win hands down.

A more interesting contest is the one between Wendell Castle’s clocks and the Midtown clock that he calls “1960s’ kitsch” and “junk”. I like the Midtown one better. Someone has been quietly tidying up MAG’s permanent collection and familiar paintings are shown in new company.

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Get To The Point

In painting class at the Creative Workshop in Rochester, we go about our business while Fred walks around the room and looks at the work. He stops at each person’s work area and looks at what you have on the easel or table. As a long time student, you know when he is behind you looking at your work and you know not to try to engage him with conversation first or any discourse on what you are working on or trying to do. He wants to look first. “No sales talk”. This is in keeping with his method. Forget about your plan. Let the painting talk to you. Address the worst first and and stop and evaluate it each time you make a move. When you have addressed all the bad, all you have left is good and of course, you are done. Staying open to surprises is part of the creative adventure. Executing a plan is “just busy work”.

Fred’s stops could last a minute or half an hour and the rest of the class can listen in on his critique. Most of what he says applies to all of us regardless of the medium or subject matter we are tackling. Leo does watercolor landscapes and I listened in while Fred was helping him with something last night. Fred was emphasizing the importance of not losing sight of the subject of the painting by putting extraneous elements in here. He used the example of painting a portrait. My ears perked up. Of course you don’t paint every hair on their head. You exclude things to focus on the subject.

The Toronto doctors who were probing around some guy’s brain when they triggered 30 year old memories by hitting a particular spot said some of the biggest scientific discoveries have been made serendipitously.

Francis Bacon said “I think that realism must be reinvented. It has to be continuously reinvented. In one of his letters van Gogh speaks of the necessity of making changes in reality that become lies that are truer than the pure truth. That is the only way a painter can recreate the intensity of the reality he attempts to capture. I think that reality in art is something profoundly artificial and that it has to be created anew, otherwise it would be merely an illustration for some purpose and thus in fact hearsay”.

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Lucrative Art Market

Margaret Explosion photo by Leo Dodd
Margaret Explosion photo by Leo Dodd

My father emailed me this photo. He took it at the Margaret Explosion gig over Christmas. I didn’t really care for the art on the walls back then. It changes every month and there is already some new stuff up for our gig tonight.

I have a painting show there in January of ’09 and I got an invoice in the mail today for $50 for the privilege. Apparently you have to be a member of the Little Theater Film Society in order to exhibit there – a worthwhile cause. The Crime Faces ought to liven up the place. Here is link to the Rain Dance from our gig at RIT on Saturday. Phil Marshall is on guitar while Bob was in Anaheim.

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