Huddled Masses #2 and Jury of my Peers

Why are you putting up all these old photos???  Because I can. Or maybe I should say "Because I finally can." As I have stated before I have had extremely bad luck with digital cameras. All my digital cameras have been:
1. Dropped and broken by my family members.
2. Lost by my family members.
3. Have stopped working at a critical moment.
4. Never worked when I took it out of the package.
5. Memory cards have been defective.
6. ... and so on.

Recently a lot of old pictures have been surfacing from a variety of sources. Here is another old one. This is called " Huddled Masses #2 ".

The picture is from my show at the Nash Gallery in August of 2012.
The one below is from the same show. (Photos by Marlies Stoddard) It is called "Jury of my Peers".  My style has clearly changed in the past two years. I have moved away from representational work towards non-representational work. Neo-Cubist style is taking shape.

Forbes Library in Northampton

Forbes Library in Northampton has become one of my main hangouts. When Pleasant Street Video went out of business a couple of years ago, Forbes Library got most of their DVD collection. This collection wasn't just like any other video store collection. Pleasant Street Video specialized in classics, strange art movies and other hard to find titles. I of course realize that you can get all this on line or on digital cable and so on. However it is not the same for old geezers like me. I want real DVDs.
    While I was in Finland some bozo poured some lighter fluid on the rug in the library stairwell and tried to burn the whole place down. We know from history that people who burn books don't usually fare well in the long run. But if someone tries to burn a whole library it should be seen as a crime against humanity. If you have to burn something, burn something else! Let the library be. I need my DVDs.

The upstairs has been closed for a couple of weeks, while the stairwell is being repaired. Looks like it could have been much worse. They caught the guy who did this. I have no sympathy for library burners. Throw the book at him!

Trip to Finland

In July I made a quick three week trip to Finland. It had been a while. I flew KLM this time. Of course these days most airlines are partnering with other airlines, so even though I had booked a KLM flight I was actually inside Delta, KLM, Finnair and Air France airplanes.

I was originally supposed to fly with my daughter, who was going to town of Hamina ( in southeastern Finland ) for ten days. She was going to take an "Intensive Finnish for Teenagers" class. However, I had to change my ticket and fly a week earlier due to some family reasons.

Eating tasty airline food (above) is always a life altering experience. There is some evidence suggesting that this piece of culinary excellence is actually chicken.

The trip was a lot of fun. I got to hang out with family and old friends. Visiting Finland is always an inspiring experience. I mean it inspires me to make Art. You see things that look different, you speak a different language, you walk around in a jetlag induced haze.... I also discovered that there is a lot of old gray wood available, if I ever have a chance to make some neo-cubist wall sculptures in Finland.

When my daughter wasn't studying finnish we had a chance to see some sights. She was taking pictures of the Helsinki Cathedral and some architectural details in the buildings in downtown Helsinki.

Of course I had to eat some pulla while I was there. Pulla is what we eat with coffee. My wife  calls it "sweet bread", which might be an accurate description, but it won't cover the whole spectrum of a pulla eating experience. Those little white dots are sugar, even though they look like salt. These pullas are distant relatives of cinnamon rolls, but much better.

Naturally eating all this pulla and finnish chocolate is not good for my waistline. 

Now I have to eat nothing but Alfalfa-sprouts for the rest of the summer.

Ray Mason

Here is another old photo. Last year ( I believe it was June) bunch of my wall sculptures got into Mill 180 Gallery. Kim Carlino and her crew hung the pieces up in an interesting formation. The opening was a blast - some caterer provided sumptious banquet of food, some specialty coffee shop provided fancy coffee and a local micro brewery provided craft beer.
   I was thrilled when it turned out that Ray Mason - a local rock legend - was playing a solo gig in front of my art. I think it is safe to call that a multi-media experience.

You should note Ray's rare Silvertone guitar. I have known Ray for twenty years and I have never seen him with another guitar. 

A tiny turtle

July 1st. I was driving home from Northampton and I saw another turtle. This one  was trying to cross the road, and with all the traffic on route 10 I knew it wasn't gonna make it. 
I did what any nature lover would do: I stopped my car, put the flashers on and rushed to help that turtle in distress. Not all the motorists were that happy about my action. This turtle  was much smaller than the last turtle I wrote about, so carrying it across the road wasn't difficult.

Clearly this was not a Snapping Turtle because it could retract completely in its shell. 

I carried it across the road and placed it down on the breakdown lane. After a couple of minutes it still hadn't moved so I eventually placed it in the underbrush on the side of the road.

I took these pictures with my aging cellphone. In the bright sunshine I couldn't see the screen on my phone. Not really great pictures, but at least I got something.

"Channeling Picasso"

   My piece "Channeling Picasso" was just accepted in a juried show at Gallery A3, 28 Amity Street in Amherst, Massachusetts.  Amherst, that quintessential New  England university town will never be the same. The show will run from July 3rd until August 2nd.The opening reception is on Thursday, July 3, from 5:00-8:00pm and the Artists' reception on Saturday July 12th, 4:00-7:00pm. 

A big dilemma

Often, when I find some cool looking wood I get really psyched about it. There can be an interesting wormhole that gets your imagination stirring and your creative juices overflowing. This piece below is one of those pieces.

A wormhole shaped like an amoeba

Then you turn the piece around and you get even more excited. The other side looks extremely cool too. Consequently you are faced with a dilemma. Which side looks better? Which side should you use? The elation you felt just a few moments ago turns into debilitating frustration.

A pair of evil eyes looking at you...

Eventually you end up not using that piece .... for now. You put it in one of those boxes in your garage where you keep your raw materials. Sometime in the future when you are looking for a chunk of wood for something you are working on, this piece will come up and all the pieces will fall in their place.

Trip to MASS MoCa

I went to MASS MoCA today. That acronym stands for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and it is located in North Adams in the Berkshires. The ride to MASS MoCA is part of the fun, because the best way to get to North Adams is through the scenic Mohawk Trail (Route 2). 

This sign in this picture is my favorite traffic sign. Every time I see one I want to jump out of the car and do the spaghetti noodle dance. 

   Just before you start descending towards North Adams you see this sign below.

The town of Florida, Massachusetts is at the highest point on the Mohawk Trail. I don't know who came up with the name.

   Once again there were lots of installations at the MASS MoCa. Sol Lewitt's wall paintings were still there. I already saw them last year, but they were worth seeing again.

In the the largest gallery they had an installation by Izhar Patkin called "The Wandering Veil". Due to the nature of his work the gallery was divided into smaller rooms. I had mixed feelings about this subdivision, because the largest room in MASS MoCa is an artwork by itself.

Some of Teresita Fernandez's installations "As Above So Below"were really interesting.This piece looks like a swarm of bugs. 

My favorite, however, was this bench below.

This is a solid bench. It looks like it could take some serious abuse and it could last for centuries. It is not part of any installation. It is just there so you can rest your feet. I would like to build something like that, but my tools can't handle material that thick.

Here is a link to MASS MoCa. Check it out! http://www.massmoca.org/

School's Out

School has ended. Monday the 23rd was the last day with the kids. After that we had a little get together at a co-worker's house. The best part of the day was these Deviled Eggs.

I just love Deviled Eggs. I did alright. I ate seven or eight of them. Next day I was talking to Jonathan, the 4th grade teacher, and he told me he had maybe ten of them. Clearly he did even better than I did.

My Last Link to Sanity

The opening of the show "My Last Link to Sanity" is behind. Last Saturday night was a great night. After spending hours at the "Cultural Chaos" at the Cottage Street so many people still had the energy to come to my show. Thank you. I made extremely hot Apple/Jalapeno meatballs and my daughter made various freaky vegan-friendly goatcheeseoliveherbmaplesyrup dips and spreads. Even my old buddy and co-worker Dave showed up. I hadn't seen the guy in almost twenty years.

   Naturally something always goes wrong. I took a bunch of pictures at the event, but it turned out that there is some kind of a defect in my new memory card. I can see the pictures on the camera screen, but no-one has been able to transfer them to the computer. Today I got a new memory card and went to shoot more pictures. When I got to the gallery the camera wouldn't turn on. I have a long history of this. Digital cameras hate me. After fighting with the camera for an hour or so, I finally managed to take a few pictures. They do seem a little over exposed and washed out. I probably can't blame my camera for this  though. I am sure the settings can be adjusted - I just don't know how.

"Coming out of Woodwork" 2013

Added 6/26/2014

After I realized that I can't get those pictures transferred to my computer I talked to a lot of tech-savvy people and visited a photo store in Northampton. No-one was able to help me.

However, today my daughter put the memory card in her computer and she managed to get one picture out of that card. I hear the rest of the files are corrupt (whatever that means).

So here it is. A blurry picture of meatballs.

Continuing saga of that huge turtle

In the afternoon when I was driving home I noticed that the Police Department or the Department of Public Works had placed some bright orange pylons around the turtle eggs.
It is nice to notice that the town officials care about the future generations of turtles.             

A huge turtle

This really has nothing to do with my art, but this is pretty cool. Two days ago as I was driving to work I saw a huge Snapping Turtle on the side of the road. I assumed she was laying eggs. I didn't have a camera with me, so I drove to school, borrowed a camera and drove back. I got out of the car and took a few pictures. I was later told that Snapping Turtles can be pretty fierce, they can move surprisingly fast and that they can actually take out your finger. I was flirting with a disaster and didn't know it. Well, I was never closer than three feet from it.

Here we go

I am getting ready for my big show at the ECA+ Gallery in Easthampton. The show is called   "My Last Link to Sanity" . The title piece can be seen below. We hung the show two weekends ago and the official opening and the artist's reception is taking place this Saturday, June 14th. On the same day, Cultural Chaos will be going on down on Cottage Street.