JUST CALL ME “GRUMPY”

Memorial Art Gallery has me spinning in my juices again. 

First, let me give applause where it is due.  The new manager of the Gallery Store is doing a superlative job! The space looks good. Positioning a small jewelry case as transition between totally wasted hallway space leading into the store was brilliant. The entry now seduces you inside.  Inventory is well presented and thank heaven! It’s still filled with original, hand-made art and objects. (To see a gallery store that is NONE of those things, visit Burchfield-Penney in Buffalo.  The building is beautiful. The gallery store is filled with “museum repro” junk.)

The true test of MAG store success? I spent $$$ both times I visited recently and let’s face it, there is a bottom line and it’s sometimes hard to adhere to prinicipals and still produce income.

So who came up with the idea for the new MAG lecture series? Inviting respected artists/designers/writers to talk about their hobbies? I don’t get it. Why should I care that world reknown furniture maker Wendell Castle likes vintage cars? I want his thoughts about collectible furniture and who’s designing it. (Disclaimer: I don’t know if Wendell is a booked speaker or if he is, what his topic.  He’s also a life-long tennis player - just an idea.)

John Beck as speaker? Terrific...he’s one of the world’s leading percussion instructors (retired) and I can’t get the movie WHIPLASH out of my head. I’d love to hear a conversation about his profession and he’s ideally qualified to talk about it but his hobby of WINEMAKING?  I personally can name a half dozen basement winemakers. Their conversations are alike and equally boring to someone like me who simply doesn’t care as long as the chardonnay is good.

A world leading japanese garden designer lives in Ithaca. He makes ceramic pots sometimes too. Which would you like him to speak about?

One day years ago when Dawson Gallery was still an East Avenue “destination”, a youngish woman came in to see a show and as usual, conversation followed. It turned out she was a leading restoration expert of antique museum quality textiles. She spent time in museums all over the world and had staved off malaria and almost died from a weird lung fungus during her work and I wondered then “why haven’t I ever heard of her?” I don’t know what her hobby was but boy, the lecture she could give on a topic most of us know little about.

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Graffiti....wall murals. I’ve written before and I’ve done more research and yes, I know that some historic wall murals are invaluable and graffiti existed probably from the first neanderthal picking up a piece of shale to draw on a cave and both have added to our evolutionary sense of aesthetics and social progression.

Nevertheless, I’m conflicted. Here are two reasons. Our national parks are becoming prime attraction targets for “muralists.” These two examples (and I won’t divulge names of the makers) are at Crater Lake and Southern Utah. 

I admit it:  I like Banksy.  I like the total latino influence of certain urban neighborhoods.  I dislike the growing traveling band of painters whose images are interchangeable whether it be Berlin or Rochester, New York. I see no difference between what they do and any billboard except that painted walls last longer and are totally ugly as they deteriorate.

Oh my....just when I have the issue of life’s meaning figured out, here comes another mental wrestling match.