RUSTED RELICS

Trespassing around abandoned spaces in Buffalo is an urban adventure for people from all over the world. I will not admit I have done this, but will say every citizen should have a chance to visit Bethlehem Steel. Coming from Boston, the history and economics of Buffalo has been a fascinating mystery to me. Walking into Bethlehem is like coming upon a crime scene - or, given the vast scale of the place, a battleground. Who passed through and left it so abandoned?  It is one thing to hear “the jobs all went to China,” but another to fully experience the exodus.

I’ve just finished a short series of little assemblages. On 5” x 7” blocks of inch wood, I’ve combined my photos with spray paint, acrylic, nails, screws, and rusty metal. These little relics help me process the experience.  They will be on view in Studio 509 at the TriMain Center, 2495 Main Street, Buffalo, NY. Coming up soon is the Buffalo Arts Studio Holiday Exhibit and Sale. It opens Saturday, November 22. Lots of treats, music and artworks for holiday giving!

UP IN THE BARGE AT THE BURCHFIELD PENNEY

A brilliant idea is becoming reality inside the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Filling the main gallery is a prototype of a barge – the kind of barge that used to haul “lumber, coal and hay” along the Erie Canal.  But the barge being planned at the BP will carry art and artists all the way through the canal system and down to Brooklyn. Curator, Scott Propeack, already has his sights set on the historic ‘Day Peckinpaugh,’ part of the New York State Museum collection.  Finishing the restoration of the Peckinpaugh and outfitting it into floating galleries is bound to be a demanding but not impossible challenge.  The potential for art to travel to new audiences through this historical waterway is too exciting not to succeed.

In the meantime, art is being “loaded in” to the BP prototype through an open curatorial system that lets the public join the process. I am happy to say my assemblage; ‘Scajaquada Baby’ made the cut and found a place on board.  The prototype will be on view until October 19, 2014.

COUNTDOWN TO ECHO

The 4^th annual echo Art Fair happens this weekend at the Central Library in Buffalo. The selected artists and galleries from all over (me included) are working on last minute details. It’s an exciting event for everyone involved: artists, collectors, first time buyers and everyone just interested in the whole scene.   

Here’s a preview of a new piece from my “Toyology” series. It’s based on things seen and found on Jefferson Avenue on Buffalo’s East side. When you come downtown to the fair, please stop by my booth to say hello and see more.

FINDING THE MAN IN BLACK

Discarded toys show up in strange places. I’ve found many down by the railroad tracks on Ohio Street. Were these toys part of a Happy Meal collection thrown out by a young ‘traveler’? Close to the discarded toy site was the massive Concrete Central grain elevator. Inside the elevator was a paint ball team happy to pose as urban warriors.  The toy, the team and the graffiti all came together in this “neighborhood in a box.”   You can see it and others in my space at the ECHO Art Fair this September 6 – 7, at the Central Library, downtown at One Lafayette Place in Buffalo. 

LITTLE BLACK BOOTS

Coming up August 9th is the Buffalo Society of Artists Open Members Show. This year’s exhibit is at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site on Delaware Avenue. In honor of ‘Teddy,’ I’m showing ‘Little Black Boots’.  This assemblage combines a discarded baby photo, acrylic paint, and my photos of abandoned houses. It’s framed with recycled wood.

This photo reminds me of my grandfather who believed that all children should wear little black boots. Perhaps because the terrain was so rough 150 years ago? Perhaps they produced strong ankles? Who knows? Anyway, Theodore Roosevelt wore them too! Here’s a picture of TR as a boy plus another vintage picture of children of that era.

The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site is at 641 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY. There will be an Opening Reception on Saturday, August 9, 2014, from 3 until 5 PM. The exhibit will be on view until Monday, September 8.  The TR Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM. On Saturday and Sunday, it will be open from Noon until 5 PM.

STILL WAITING FOR THE WRECKING BALL

1681 Fillmore Avenue has been waiting for years. It’s been on the official top ten list to be demolished since at least May, 2012. Meanwhile, it’s wide open and dangerous, filled with tires, toys, wooden pallets and broken furniture. Filthy vinyl hangs from the ceiling like depressed flags. Evidence of gang activity shows in the graffiti throughout. This place, once a carpet store, has none of the structural beauty of many of Buffalo’s other abandoned places. It sits in a residential neighborhood, open and unprotected, just begging for a kid to fall down a broken staircase. Right across the street is a firehouse.  Fire may claim this building long before the city ever gets around to demolishing it. When it finally goes down, no preservationists will mourn.

I’ve actually found many toys in this nasty dumping ground. Here is a Batman figure in an assemblage I call ‘Batman vs. The Joker.’ The graffiti at the building’s entrance is duplicated in miniature on the side panel of the assemblage. All together, it is a landscape – a neighborhood in a box.

RESTORING SCAJAQUADA CREEK

Thanks to dedicated activists like Margaret Wooster, Doreen DeBoth, Mark Kubiniec and Max Willig, there is a real drive to restore the Scajaquada Creek to some of it’s former health and beauty. This once pristine stream, meandering through Cheektowaga and Buffalo, has been diverted, damned, fought over and polluted, but now is gaining respect. With Alberto Rey’s visually stunning and enlightening exhibit at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, it was the perfect time for the Grant/Amherst Business Association to organize a panel discussion about the Creek. We met at the Burchfield Penney on June 12 for “Scajaquada Creek Talks II: Art in the Service of Education and Community Development.” Both the panel and the audience told some amazing stories! There was a new appreciation for just how much damage has been done to this treasure of water.

The next community meeting will be on Wednesday, June 18 from 4 – 7 pm at Buffalo State College in the Bulger Communication Center at 1300 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. The focus will be on the NYS Department of Transportation and plans to convert the Scajaquada Expressway into a 30mph city street. Citizens agree, “the Expressway was a mistake made decades ago and now the time has come to fix it.”

GYRE, The Plastic Ocean

Now on view at the Anchorage Museum of Alaska is the compelling exhibit, ‘GYRE, the Plastic Ocean.’  ‘GYRE’ combines art and science to show viewers the full scope of this environmental crisis.

In the words of curator, Julie Decker, “With stunning visual impact and an astonishing array of ocean trash, internationally recognized artists create works of art for this exhibition from debris collected from beaches around the world. Plastic packaging in a throwaway culture finds its way into our ocean biosphere and then into the hands of artists. Our oceans and beaches are awash in plastic pollution propelled by gyre (rotating ocean currents). The exhibition explores the relationship between humans and the ocean in a contemporary culture of consumption. “

My three pieces in the show are illustrations of figures in the trash filled water. Other artists, such as Mark Dion, created beautifully organized display cases of found objects. So interesting to see how other artists approach the problem.

‘GYRE’, will remain on view until September 6. It will then tour with the Smithsonian. People seem to becoming aware of the problem. For more information trash in the oceans, check out www.oceanconservancy.org. Also, #marine  #debris  Thank you!

DOES ANYONE KNOW THESE MOTHERS?

Their photos were part of an entire album thrown out with the trash on Rodney Street. I added my photos of houses on the Eastside along with bits and pieces to mark locations. The frames are wood from Buffalo ReUse, sanded just enough to reveal more layers of time. Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 11. These mothers are long forgotten but their DNA, their children’s children could still be in Buffalo. Their life goes on. 

IN THE LAND OF HENRY DARGER - CHICAGO

Henry Darger reminds us that art is not about selling a painting to match the couch – it’s about keeping your spirit alive no matter how harsh your circumstances.  He’s probably the greatest self-taught  “outsider” artist and the little room he retreated to at the end of his workday is perfectly preserved in the Intuit Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago at 756 N. Milwaukee Avenue.

I am visiting Chicago this week so I have some time to catch up on Darger’s story. Born in 1892, his mother died when he was four and his crippled and impoverished father was taken to live in a Catholic Mission home. Soon after, Darger was institutionalized in the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children. "Little Henry's heart was not in the right place." He suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome, probable sexual abuse, forced labor and severe punishments. He finally escaped at the age of 16 and returned to Chicago. With the help of his godmother, he found menial employment in a Catholic hospital where he worked and supported himself until his retirement in 1963. Except for a brief stint in the U.S. Army during World War I, his life followed a rigid pattern: he attended daily Mass, frequently returning for as many as five services; he collected and saved a bewildering array of trash from the streets. His dress was shabby, although he attempted to keep his clothes clean and mended. He was largely solitary; his one close friend, William Schloeder, was like minded on the subject of protecting abused and neglected children, and the pair proposed founding a "Children's Protective Society", which would put such children up for adoption to loving families. Schloeder left Chicago sometime in the mid-1930s, but he and Darger stayed in touch through letters until Schloeder's death in 1959. In 1930, Darger settled into a second-floor room on Chicago's North Side, at 851 W. Webster Avenue. It was in this room, over the course of 43 years, that Darger produced his breathtaking, disturbing, monumental artwork and writings. His works including “In the Realms of the Unreal” detail a complex fantasy world filled with idyllic beauty and hellish violence.

 Darger’s secret life’s work was found by his landlord shortly after he moved out of his apartment and into a nursing home. Darger died in 1973 and is buried in All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois, in a plot called "The Old People of the Little Sisters of the Poor Plot". Darger's headstone is inscribed "Artist" and "Protector of Children". Darger once wrote of children's right "to play, to be happy, and to dream, the right to normal sleep of the night's season, the right to an education, that we may have an equality of opportunity for developing all that are in us of mind and heart."