PICTURE SHOWS

I just saw the newly released version of “True Grit” and when I got home, playing on Turner Classic Movie channel, was the original 1969 version of the same movie. I remember seeing the John Wayne Oscar winning performance 40 years ago and wondered how closely the new release followed the old.

The obvious difference? The Coen brothers production is darker. People are dirty with oily hair and rumpled clothes. No pretty vistas - most scenes are set in semi- or total darkness. Men are regularly shot, hanged or otherwise physically violated and with true-to-life special effects, it’s all effectively gruesome. (In the original, John was never completely convincing as an old, has-been drunkard. The second banana Texas Ranger played by Glen Campbell (yes, the singer!) never got his hair mussed and the young girl was clever but also sweet as pie and cute as a button. Is that Robert Duval as the bad guy who gets shot, wallows around in the dust but gets up with totally clean shirt and pants?)

With all this grit in the NV, the rhythms of speech underscore the nearly foreign nature of its time and place. Language is nearly “old English” – no contractions – a jarring formality to the violence. I don’t know what to make of all this but I’m pretty sure it signals something significant about our times and tastes – in entertainment as in art.

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Chip and I came back to Rochester ten days ago to celebrate the holidays with family and friends and check on progress of the new kitchen finished just hours before we arrived. The kitchen is fabulous! But we have done less celebrating than imagined unless you count painting said kitchen and cleaning construction dust from every possible nook in the townhouse.

But nice surprises happen in spite of our mislaid plans; that’s one of the gifts of city living. We stopped for breakfast one morning last week and met Francie and Robert Marx – total serendipity! They are interesting, charming people and it is always a pleasure to spend time with them.

I’ve been thinking about women and politics lately. With more information comes deepening depression. Then Francie sent me this picture. Robert paints “portraits” but rarely of real subjects. He made an exception for Dorothy. How could Dorothy not be thrilled with the resulting painting? Robert has crowned her Queen Dorothy and I can’t help believing that in his world, he would give most every woman at least a small tiara.

Merry Christmas.

Tower of Babel ...and other musings

Lydia Musco had a solo exhibit of her work last year at Davidson College. Lydia lives in Massachusetts. Transporting her 8ft. tall sculptures to the North Carolina gallery must have taken some doing. These things are constructed of thin stacks of paper pulp, concrete and wood.

The simplest are single four-sided columns. Others are two or more columns, shuffled together. They twirl and teeter and it’s the tension and texture that you notice right off. Next you might notice that the twirls are part of a dance – or maybe a fight to stay upright.

I just finished reading “Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann. The novel includes the story of tightrope walker Philippe Petit who stunned New York City when he walked between the two World Trade Center towers then under construction (1974). It was an act that was beautiful and frighteningly repellent – amazing and crazy – a “fuck you” finger pointed to God and a prayer of thanks for the gift of movement.

Lydia is a young artist. She has lots of practice time left. I hope she has the courage and tenacity to keep pushing at the intersection between beauty and disaster.

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National columnist Neal Peirce came to lecture in Rochester in the early 1990’s. The Coalition for Downtown brought him. We were all hot to push metropolitan government, erasing lines between the City and suburbia and Peirce wrote a compelling argument in his book CITYSTATES.

The argument never got far and now, nearly 20 years later, with every government budget sinking in red ink, we in Upstate New York are still not persuaded to give up our patch of identity.

Today’s Charlotte Observer ran a current Pierce column titled “How to avert a new Crisis in Suburbia.” He quotes analyst Jonathan Miller and the 2011 edition of “Emerging Trends in Real Estate” extensively. Miller claims that tract mansions are the Hummers of real estate, as obsolete as the cars. He says that foreclosures are greatest in these fringe suburbs and that the group most able to purchase such dinosaurs is marching off to downsize and the buyers on the way in (ages 30 –45) are not interested in that lifestyle choice. Besides, there are too few of them.

He claims that the changing tides will usher in a “Fix-up, Re-model, Expand, and Condominium Era” and that realtors and government planners must catch up.

Well!!!

Far Out!

On Sunday, I decided to cruise new art exhibits in town. Memorial Art Gallery just opened “Psychedelic: Optical and Visionary Art Since the 1960s.” Rochester Contemporary Art Center is in mid-run of “Geometries: Recent works by Christopher McNulty and Andy Gilmore.” Both shows are masterfully installed and (coincidentally) speak to each other.

I walked into the main gallery at MAG and was immediately drowned in vibrating color, pattern and light and thought "I really need to bring my grandkids to see this." Then I thought "they see this stuff all the time - t.v. shows, games, teen clubs, Strong Museum". And that's my biggest problem with this show - the art hasn't aged well. Psychedelic imagery sold t-shirts, Grateful Dead record albums and "Hair" playbills. It was "sock it to me" backdrop. It may be nostalgic fun but I'm not sure it deserves much reverence.

Now for the BIG STATEMENT: Any time anybody frames "art", hangs it on a big museum wall and trains a spotlight on it...then has guards walking around to insure a hushed semi-religious environment!...poor Mr. and Mrs. Everybody assumes this stuff must be important. The older I get the more determined I am to say "hogwash!" Does that mean our art museum must be more careful about exhibit choices? Yes! Can they still have a review of art from the 60's? Yes again.
But perhaps a sprinkle of silly dust might bring the whole thing into perspective. At least, that what the artists of those times wanted viewers to believe.

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RoCo has become a really class act. Show installations are first rate - a hard-fought professionalism is evident everywhere in this uptown space. I applaud the work they do even if I don't always like the artwork they present. The current show ("Geometries") LOOKS good

but the optical color patterns by Andy Gilmore are hyped up images that fit easily into the MAG show. After the first OH! comes the hum.

Christopher McNulty's drawings are of the obsessive school and really, are we all getting a tiny bit weary of the whole multiple deal? He uses little pencil marks to create big circles...the number of dots significant (to him) of his life expectancy. The large wall piece pictured above was created from patterns left on 6 x 6 pieces of paper, taped over his car tail pipe.

Ego-centric artwork - galleries and museums are full of it! Art students want their work to tell their story/their experience. Teenaged super-stars publish their memoirs with revisions written in their mid-twenties. We've taught this generation that their every thought is profound. It is individualism run amok.

I agree that all art is autobiographical but historically, artists channel larger issues - universal puzzles, life and death questions - through their particular eye. I'm looking for that transcendence.

Or am I just getting old and crotchety? (Chip answers "yes.")

Homage to an Artist

Jackie Owens died in August. She suffered from a long-standing heart condition and COPD but I suspect that she died because she was 83 years old and ran clean out of passion. In another culture, she might have wandered into the woods or crawled into a cave or onto an ice flow and commanded her spirit to leave her earthly body. Instead, she checked into a hospital room, gave her children fair notice by a few days that she was about to go and then succumbed to the “great stillness.”

For any of you who did not know her, Jackie had short hair, a round face and was about as big as a peanut. She liked intense conversation about big subjects. After getting your point of view, she would pull her nearly 5 foot frame up close, take a deep breath, spew out the most amazingly incendiary, politically leftist manifesto then erupt into giggles.

Her liberalism was not surface decoration. She continually championed better live/work conditions for women, demonstrated against war early and often, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Women’s Museum and constantly found original ways to aid and abet those in need.

For her 50<sup>th</sup> birthday, she initiated an anti-war billboard, gathering together enough investors to pay for the printing and installation of the original artwork by Bob Conge. “Disarm or Die” haunted Rt. 490 for at least a month during the summer of 1977. (1978?)

I think that was when I first met Jackie. We crossed paths as exhibiting artists – we were both on the outdoor art circuit in those days – and for some reason Jackie invited me to the barn/home/studio she shared with then-husband Roy to listen to her proposition. The place was full of talented, creative people – a stew of juicy personalities the likes of which I had never spent casual time with before. I liked these people. I admired their intellect and sense of justice and I wanted to stay a part of the group.

So much for my "real" job hunting! I never left (metaphorically) the party and I still hold admiration and reverence for artists. They have shaped my adult life. I have Jackie to thank for the introduction.

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Jackie’s daughters held a small reception and invited a few friends to take home a piece of Jackie’s artwork to remember her by. I picked this little drawing. It is not one of her best but it is one of her last.

Our Aunt Patsy who died 4 years ago painted the oil landscape. Patsy was a perennial student and took art lessons until she died at age 87. There’s something so optimistic about that!

I cherish these two pictures and wonder: has business extinguished the emotional value of art?

Four Months Later

Four months – a third of a year – gone! I am increasingly aware of time – the finite-ness of it. Several of my friends died this summer, two former neighbors, a member of my book club and others whom I knew casually. I don’t mean to sound depressed or anything but this sucks! I want to scream at something or someone “WAIT! IT’S NOT TIME.”

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We moved to this townhouse in July. Our big house was sold to a lovely woman who wanted a “grown up house.” We lost a lot of money on the property but given the economic realities of real estate, we felt lucky to get out with a little of our investment and so we took the advice of our NC realtor and friend Linda – “Accept the offer and get on with your lives.”

Our master plan revolves around paring down and simplifying. To do that, we needed to divest ourselves of the big property and all the equipment, time and effort to maintain it. (Check. Craig’s List turned out to be invaluable.) We plan to divide the year between the new cottage in North Carolina and this townhouse. Here are a few pictures.

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Now that this living arrangement stuff is resolved, I’ll get back to writing about art. But I confess I haven’t had the interest or the heart for art lately. First, I haven’t seen anything in months that inspired much thoughtful exploration. And this moving business takes all the “creativity” I can muster and when I’m not plotting color, line and space, I’m thinking about…..forgiveness. What does it mean? Who reaps the benefit? Is it just a word that we’ve tossed around so long that we really don’t know what it means? Please help!

More Pictures (Continued from below)

I couldn't get all these posted.

Here goes another try.

The North Carolina Cottage

We're packing to head north. The house there is still not sold and it sits where we left it - half furnished, probably full of dead flies and smelling stale from five months of disuse. We will refresh the place, rearrange to fill spaces and hope that by some miracle, a buyer will materialize within the next few weeks and we can get on with the next step in our strategic downsize plan.

Meanwhile, many of you have asked to see where we live down here and so here are a few photographs. Questions? I'll be glad to answer. (New art: the large painting in the dining area is by southern painter Charles Ladson.)

Art by Any Other Name

I think I fell in love last week with W. Gary Smith. He’s a garden designer and in one short hour-long presentation – his keynote address at the 26^th Annual Davidson Horticultural Symposium – he expressed everything I hold as truth about gardening and by extraction, life itself.

I’ve been to a ton of garden lectures and frankly (and I cross myself as I say this) I could not care less about the MOST IMPROVED PLANT OF THE YEAR or the VERY LAST WORD IN DAY LILIES or TEN PLANTS YOU SIMPLY MUST HAVE IN YOUR GARDEN. Who cares? They live, they die, and they get replaced. I don’t need to know their Latin names or the latest cultivar. I like hostas – I just don’t need to COLLECT hostas (or roses, or day lilies). Does this make me a bad gardener or worse, an unworthy gardener? Should I drop my memberships in Perennial Society, National Garden Conservation League, or the Monroe County Garden Society to make room for someone who is more attuned to the soil?

There’s one major problem with that (in my mind at least): THEY NEED ME because I AM A DISCIPLE OF W. GARY SMITH. He preaches the gospel of design. He explains why certain shapes and patterns – repeated mysteriously and omni-presently in nature – please the human eye and lift the soul. He illustrated nine basic patterns in his presentation with exquisitely chosen words and pictures. The message was simple enough for the beginner gardener to grasp but old-timers were nodding with sudden insight as Smith spoke.

And if all that isn’t enough to make my heart flutter (or is that the by-pass surgery talking?), I learned a new word: NUMINOUS. An adjective that means filled with a sense of supernatural presence, spiritually elevated, sublime.

These are the reasons scientists everywhere need people like me – and Smith – and artists – and writers, musicians and day dreamers. Life is much more interesting when you squint your eyes, look for the patterns and discover the numinous spaces.

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Here is an installation that defies category: is it art or gardening? By any measure, it is creative and NUMINOUS. It’s the labor (and yard) of Robin and David Wilgus. David is an illustrator/artist by day but at night, he must be a major scavenger. The fence across the front of his house is fairly new; I saw it first last year when it was nearly pristine. In the intervening months, it’s sprouted curly iron debris (Wilgus sees this as “growing vines.”)

That construction at the back of the Wilgus house is an outdoor room. It glitters, shimmers, and is a real-brought-to-life version of “can you spy….?” Or “find 32 white doorknobs” or whatever your experience is with that game. He calls it the patio. I call it a cathedral.

ART PLACES

Before I left Rochester in January, I visited a few friends. Beverly, my former business partner and BFF, was deep into living room renewal. Out with her purple suede Italian modern sofa and chair! Away with an oh-so-appropriate oriental area rug! Track lighting? Dated and harsh. Now she’s cocooned in a pastel green jellybean sofa that sits on a shaggy meadow of a rug, the kind that could hide small pets. And in place of track lighting, a huge cloud of white frosted twigs forms the chandelier over her dining table.

Tom Burke and Barbara Fox changed EVERYTHING beginning with their home address. This urban (urbane?) couple sold their city house, a 1900’s late Victorian with fireplaces, moldings, a front porch and lots of woodwork. They skipped right past the suburbs and set up the nest in a chic, open lofty townhouse three or four villages away from the city core where they’ve lived for as long as I’ve known them.

Nancy Kelly and Peter Pappas went the same route – but kept right on going. Their local quirky little cottage surrounded by woods, a ravine and wild life galore has a new owner. Nancy and Peter are excited residents of a swanky 6<sup>th</sup> floor condo in the heart of a major west coast city. They will leave their car parked in the underground garage and walk to everything – right after they finish oiling the teak cabinetry and stop staring out the glass walls at an elegant cityscape.

Change. Most people say they want it. Few actually pursue it. Whether it’s a color on a wall or a change of zip code, most of us keep to the shoulder of the road where it’s predictable. Nothing at all wrong with that decision as long as it’s honestly come by. It’s the saying of one thing and the doing – or not doing – of the other that I object to. To any of us who have jumped into the whirlpool of change, good luck and I hope we all find what we seek. To those who stay planted, roots can be admirable. Those of us out swimming need to know that you’ll welcome us back to familiarity.

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Belinda Bryce is another friend who has changed her shirt – and address – a few times this past year or two. She’s been busy making her little city cottage homey. The first time I visited her there, I teased her about a powder room wall papered and decorated with the clichés of early Americana. Last summer, she stripped the wallpaper and after visiting the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art and the huge Sol le Witt installation, she decided to Sol her powder room walls. Here’s a photograph of the result. And yes, that pattern you see is about six layers of “scribbles” with various pencils – over every inch of all four walls. I’m not sure if this was a labor of love from start to last or one of endurance. Maybe both?

Soon after moving to our new winter home here in Charlotte, NC, we went to the downtown Hodges Taylor Gallery fete: the closing of the group show that featured among the five artists, works by Judith Olson Gregory.

Many of you know Judy; she was a Rochester resident and very active artist for twenty or more years before she and her husband Fred left for a warmer winter. Judy turned to hand-made paper casting sculpture years ago and in the past three or four, she’s used the kimono image as basis for expression. She showed three newer pieces in the H-T Gallery show; this is one. Paper was cast using a large hosta leaf as the form.

FROM THE DEPTHS OF WINTER

Do you believe in universal images? Are there animals, symbols, signs that crop up in art and dreams the world over regardless of culture, religious disposition or politics? Do they transcend time? And do those same images represent the same things to each participant?

How does this make you feel? Do you scoff at such mumbo-jumbo? Or are you comforted knowing you are not alone in the human condition, that ultimately you are bound inextricably to the family of humankind? Does it change your politics? Or how you look at art?

This is the time of year for such contemplation and – oh ho! – I am admitting another link in the march of human development! The fear of extinction parallels the Winter Solstice – the shared ancient panic at the death of light.

Belinda Bryce just sent me images of her new paintings. She marries unexpected colors in ways that always knock me out and combines pigment with melted beeswax – encaustic painting. The result is depth and surface value that’s wonderfully tactile and she makes the most of the medium.

As for subject, she’s in the hip pocket right now of the rabbit fetish. I immediately jump to the symbolic meaning of rabbits = hearth, home, procreation, femininity, and fertility.

Here’s the question: are rabbits merely the artists’ theme of the week (think back to dogs, often with bloody fangs, birds, especially black crows)?

Or are rabbits one of those intuitive symbols too strong to resist?

(Belinda’s solo exhibition opens in February at the Little Theater Café.)

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No silly platitudes from me about spring being right around the corner! It’s really cold. The scene from my window is black, white and gray – maybe as monotone as nature ever becomes. I am wallowing in ice-ness. So is my brother in Tulsa, Oklahoma, my friend in Florida and people in China that I don’t know yet. But be hopeful; we all looked out our windows on December 23 and voila!, the sun didn’t die after all.

Happy New Year!