Snow Again

Snow Again, 2.3.14

Snow Again, 2.3.14

More snow and today it falls on the edge of being rain. Awful to traffic but so pleasant if you are inside, a cup of coffee and the pleasure of watching it come down. Nature is keeping us alert this season. Write you novel, give a surprise gift to your friend, make snowflakes, smile at your co-workers for a change, and be glad you are part of the grand plan.  The helicopters have returned to their nests and normalcy has returned to Midtown.  Happy Monday!

iPhone in the Storm, 2.3.14

iPhone in the Storm, 2.3.14

Super Bowl Crescendo

Homeland Security

Homeland Security

A huge Homeland Security trailer has been stationed outside our door all week and for the last two days the air is filled with copters buzzing around non-stop, day and night.  Policemen are plentiful.  It feels more like a war zone than a pleasure dome. I wonder at the expense of underwriting this brutal sport that sacrifices steroid pumped steers for our bloodthirsty pleasure. I wonder what this money could do for children who can’t read, teachers who can’t read, the homeless, the hungry and all the other segments of our citizenry who are being squeezed out of what used to be their city.  This is called entertainment.

Forces of Nature /Natural Forces opens January 27, 2014

Easy Street

Easy Street

 

Easy Street, 2003, Oil on Canvas, 60″ x 60″ will be included in Natural Forces/Forces of Nature.

Natural Forces/Forces of Nature is the first of a two-part group exhibition of work by some of the Pratt Institute Fine Arts faculty. Curated by the scholar Lisa Banner, the show opens at the Rubelle & Norman Schafler Gallery on January 27, with a reception from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Through February 8, 2014.

Forces of Nature

Last Days of Summer

Girl with Umbrella, Central Park, August

Girl with Umbrella, Central Park, August

Here we are in the last days of summer.  It was cooler, chilly even, and now hot again, so confusing.  Do the dogs shed their coats or grow them?  They look at me wondering since they think I have the answers. This weather must perplex many a mammal with fur.  The shot was taken in the 90s with a film camera I bought for $50 from a friend.  It’s a small Olympus that I still have.  Heavy by current standards, I carried it everywhere usually loaded with Kodacolor 200.

 

For many summers I took students out on the land in both Vermont and in New York, a few times in Venice.  It is the best kind of experience for learning to concentrate amidst all the distractions and difficulties of being unprotected while trying to paint.  Students hate the first week or two of it and then learn the routine of becoming part of the environment and the pleasure of what they witness.  They become sensitive to all these things they hadn’t noticed when they just walked through the land.  This is more so in the city.  This was taken just as the rains hit and paints and canvases had to be protected quickly.  One prepares for that and all was saved.

 

Things change but Central Park is still beautiful in the rain, in August, when the weather is odd and we find old photographs to remind us.