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 6th 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.
