won't you be my neighbor pictures

The opening for the Won't You Be My Neighbor show was pretty exciting. Quite a few people had a riotous time adding layers to the initial layers that Sam and I fed our our piece with. Several of those people were ten years old or younger. Not so much has happened since the opening but still we're pretty happy with the reception. The show is on its way out of the gallery, with the next show opening in early October.

Sorry I don't have a late-stage picture with straws and paper sticking out as well as rocks and terra cotta pieces and clay infill. There are more pictures of Sam's and my work -- Time Becomes Us: Theses about Materials and Persons -- at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/56294332@N00/albums/72157710911254072

The little booklet includes a title page and a statement of our intentions as well as instructions encouraging comments with, again, some starter material. We haven't gotten too many comments but we did get a good comment about fossils. We had talked in our statement about fossils on some of the shale we had as fodder and wondered how some of the other materials (like plastic, for example) might or might not leave fossils for future generations. And what about fossils that are getting "buried" inside the artwork? And are people similar to materials? Do we sometimes leave legacies that resonate with future generations? Do we sometimes disappear without a trace?

Justin Grigg, participant in the show and former mayor of Alfred, did a creek walk yesterday. We didn't walk in the creek bed, we walked near the creek and talked about how Alfred doesn't use its "waterfront" as effectively as a lot of other places. Sometimes the creek even disappears under a parking lot. We did walk across that parking lot. It is Parents' Weekend at Alfred University so there was an interesting crowd for the walk, locals and some folks new to Alfred. Justin and I both live on the main fork of Canacadea Creek, Cohen Gallery is on the fork that comes down West University Street and joins the main fork near the village stoplight, Andrea lives on a tributary near the north edge of town.

Paci column in Venice and at Jeu de Paume

Last night at work I was looking at the 2019 annual collectors issue of Art News (vol. 118, no. 3, fall 2019) and happened on a small picture of The Column by Adrian Paci at the Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2014:

(photo from Architectural Association webpage)

And that led me to Paci's 2013 film about making the column on the boat as the marble came over from China. From stone to art, from East to West, from the ancient world to contemporary fabrication and economics. Images of Maersk trucks delivering a stone column to the plazas outside the Jeu de Paume in Paris.

Nina and Alma

I'm pretty predictable, with choices, when I visit the Terra Cotta Coffee House in Alfred. It's either a medium latte in a ceramic mug, or a dark roast in a ceramic mug with room for milk, or a fill-up of my travel mug with room for milk. One of the baristas (baristi?), an art student, is often at the counter and she'll ask "latte or coffee?" Carol, Barb, and I stopped for supper the other day and I left my name with the person taking the order. When my order was called, "my" barista heard my name and noted that she hadn't known my name. I asked her over at the condiments counter what her name was and she flirtatiously wouldn't say. OK. I'm going to call you something different each time I see you and you'll have to figure out why I'm calling you that. So far ...

Three days ago, she was Nina because Nina Katchadourian has just joined the stable at Pace Gallery. Quite an honor and you can click on Nina K's name above for an article from Art News or you can go to her website to see some of her stuff. She had a show at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College some years ago and I dragged the family over from my sister's where we were visiting for Thanksgiving.

Yesterday, she was Alma because of Alma Thomas, an African American artist who does the most gorgeous colorful abstract paintings. She was not particularly well-known but had a show in 2016 organized by the Tang Teaching Museum and the Studio Museum in Harlem. There's a lovely painting by her at the Smithsonian American Art Museum that I got to see again this past summer when ALA was in Washington.

Hmm. Maybe it's a Tang thing ... but I'm not likely to go there (to Tang orange drink, that is) at the Terra Cotta. The Tang Museum also had a Sister Corita Kent show. Tomorrow, maybe Corita.