Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Changing Lanes


3021 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY
14618

Hello readers  it has been a while since my last post early in the year and a LOT has happened since.

Of course there is the world-wide news of the Corona virus which has everyone in an unprecedented state of mind!  Closer to home - my home to be exact - we have been moving from the one you see above.  The neighborhood is in Brighton, and the area is called Twelve Corners, and we have lived in this house for over 26 years!  


My office in Brighton

Here is the room in which I have composed my blog posts, and much more over the past ten years.

It has been a pleasure to be in this house, which helped my family by being so effective as a dwelling with easy access to everywhere in the Rochester area.  But now is our time to move on, and we are starting a new chapter in a new place in Fairport!

Since moving, I have not been able to write about the art shows like I usually do.  I have not been able to spend time in my studio working on my art.  Packing and moving a house is an exhausting experience which doesn't get any easier as you get older!  I also had an artistic inventory to move out of my attic, taking into account a portion of over thirty years of paintings and drawings and prints, along with my own collection of art by other people.....

I do intend to get back to my writing, and my first intent is to say something about books that I have read as a form of relaxation after packing many,many boxes in order to make our move.  I had a wonderful encounter with the artist Romare Bearden years ago in New York City, so I have been very fortunate to have been reading a survey of his life and career which has been recently published.
Here is a picture of the cover of this new compendium by Mary Schmidt Campbell, below:


"An American Odyssey"
by
Mary Schmidt Campbell
about the life and art of Romare Bearden

Over the years when I was a student, I would go to the Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery in New York City to see the art of Romare Bearden, and finally had a chance to meet him and talk briefly with him at an opening for one of his last shows in that gallery.  In the new book above, I could read about his back story and the history of his development which is considerable.  I can even recall that Romare Bearden  an ardent maker of collage,  used some of my father's art that had been produced as an advertisement, and I mentioned that to him, and he just smiled!

In any case I want to spend more time with this book, and dig into it a bit more in my next post to this blog.  Thanks for reading, I will get back into the swing of things!  Stay healthy, stay safe!