DOES THIS PLACE MATTER?

The old Lenzner Bottling Factory at 630 Genesee Street is now on the city’s demolition list. It doesn’t have the architectural significance of other threatened buildings like Bethleham Steel’s North Office but personally I’ll miss it. Among all the interesting things inside were a truck, a piano and lots of little sprouts trying to reforest the space. It was the inspiration for my assemblage, Shreck. The back wall of the assemblage is a photo of the Lenzner interior showing its collapsed roof. The Shreck toy is a McDonald’s throwaway found in the neighborhood. Shreck’s little family is painted looking at him as if to say, “Did you do all this?” The outside of the box is painted with miniature graffiti. I based it on the giant tag on the Lenzner building by the ubiquitous Buffalo tagger, ATAK. I think of my assemblage as a little neighborhood in a box that will survive when the actual neighborhood is demolished.

FOR ALL MOTHERS PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE

Enjoy your special day! Here's a mother & daughter in delicate balance from another time, in another world. (From my "Discarded Ancestors" collage series)

WHO WILL BUILD THE CITY UP EACH TIME?

The model for this painting of a worker is actually my father, Richard William MacLean. Richard is 94 years old, strong, full of life and still works fixing up old tools. The painting is framed using recycled wood from Buffalo ReUse. You can meet him at the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s Members Show. The opening is Friday, May 11, from 5:30 – 7:30 pm. Hope to see you there!

FIELD TRIP TO SYRACUSE

We traveled to Syracuse to explore more of the city, take photos and find discarded toys to complete my pieces for the T.O.N.Y. exhibition. On the high end, we saw the Robert Henri exhibition at the Everson Museum. Another find was Stella's Diner on Lodi Street with a huge crowd of locals eating HUGE platters of food. We also found "Skunk City," the nadir of the city's slums. It was so easy to find what I needed but also sad to see the ruins of former glory. Similar problems to Buffalo and yet unique.