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Painting in oil on paper titled ‘Net’ under the show title in the Gallery.

These paintings are at the entrance to the gallery. The large painting is ‘A New World’ and the higher of the two small paintings is ‘Recent Wound’ and below is ‘Susanna’.

The wide view to the right side of the Gallery.

The left side of the gallery

Early graphite drawings circa 1980 and one of the  affinites (an oil sketch by John Frederik Kensett)from the museum’s collection over the guest book.

Al Mathes, a painter and one of his oldest friends, with Colman at the opening.

All old friends at the opening, Colman in blue and bow tie, his brother, Adi Rutkin, Al Mathes and Sage Reynolds (me).

Diane Matyas, Colman Rutkin and Renee at the refreshments table down stairs at the Staten island Museum.

Amy Trautwein, Gopi, Sandeep Shrikumar and Jenny Tango

Tim Moran, Robert Brown and Marc Zimmetbaum

Gail Middleton, Sarah Yuster and Irma Bohorquez-Geisler

Kristi Pfister and Laura Jean Waters

Denise Mumm talking with Jenny Tango

Susan Grabel and Bill Murphy

Colman Rutkin and John Quinn

Colman Rutkin and part of his immediate family in front of the Staten Island Museum after the opening.

 

 

Today we attended the opening of Meg Whitlock’s photography exhibit at the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art.  It was a great day to be out and this is a new part of the island for us.  I have been told that this is the highest point on the east coast, being somewhat south of the Verrazano Bridge and with no leaves on the trees, we could see vast expanses of the Atlantic between houses and over roof tops. The houses on the ocean side of the road were surprising in that the entrance level was often the second or third floor of the building. The drop off is so sheer that additional floors were built down from street level with the farther reaches on stilts, many driveways are like bridges from the street to the house.

Here are some views of the  museum terraces.

The street is about level with the museum’s roof.

Some of my favorite iris were blooming in the terrace garden.

Lhasa on the Hudson is a fine-art photography project that has been funded by the Council of the Arts and Humanities of Staten Island, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and JP Morgan Chase. The focus of the project is a documentary investigation of the life and work of members of the Tibetan  community currently living in New York City, with Staten Island itself having been the home of a major Tibetan cultural institution for over 60 years. Since that time, thousands of Tibetans have emigrated to every borough of New York City, as well as to New Jersey and Long Island. A recent survey by the Government of Tibet estimates that there are 7,000 Tibetans living in the New York metropolitan area-and over 1,000 Tibetan mothers with children.  The project was approached initially from the perspective of  Tibetan mothers who have emigrated to the United States in search of the abundant educational and human rights opportunities necessary for their children to thrive in a globalized modern society.  The goal of this project was the investigation of both the accomplishments and challenges facing the modern Tibetan community in diaspora, while providing the beginnings of a visual record for future generations of Tibetans living in New York-children who will grow up as both American citizens and inheritors of a culture that has survived both the loss of its country and over 50 years of life in exile.

More about the exhibit at this link Lhasa on the Hudson

Meg Whitlock receiving  a set of prayer flags at the opening of her show from the Museum Director Meg Ventrudo.

Part of the ever changing exhibit of the Marchais collection of Tibetan Art.

Our friends Stephen and Shannon.

More of some of the Museum Collection.

A small altar.

I’ve been thinking about making something like this but to hold candles.

This is one of a pair of chairs set with stones that look like ink painted landscapes.

Colman talking with Farrell.

Beverly

Stephen and Shannon

The photographer Meg Whitlock and  Beverley.

Meg and fiancee Tim.

The lighthouse on Lighthouse Hill, Staten island

After delivering a large order of binding work on Tuesday, Colman and I took Wednesday off to go into the city and see some things together. We had intended to see the silver in the permanent collection at the Jewish Museum but found that it was closed on Wednesdays. An unexpected turn of events. So we went to the Cooper Hewitt to see the Van Cleef and Arpel jewelry show.
It was a surprise to see our friend Idee there, and we went through part of the show with her.

We left the Cooper-Hewitt and headed to a Pain le Quotidien for lunch on Lexington Avenue as we worked our way down town towards the Met. There were a lot of dogs out in the bright weather. I used to make and collect photos of  New Yorkers with their matched pairs of canines.  This was the first set I saw .

Later in the day I saw this pair.  I’m putting the photos together as another pair.

One of the few remaining parts of old, low skyline NewYork. Buildings with only 4 floors.

A few of these dogs  were unusually colored and had pale blue eyes.

This church is being refinished on the outside. It was almost completely shrouded in scaffolding. Only this entrance with its guardian eagle was outside of the net.

A touch of Spring in a sunny corner.

Here are some shots of the architectural decoration of a large old synagog.

The swans are caged window boxes.

At the Met, this is the first thing that caught my eye, a gold and emerald clasp with pierced, chased and wire work that becomes a pendant.

Ceramic masks in miniature.  They are about 6 inches tall.

The egyptian collection has been changed since we saw it last, this piece of carved granite is at the entrance, I looks like a  boat  with the sun in it  framed by a  comb.

Bes and an instrument.

This pot is inspirational. I want to make something like it in mixed metals with solder, rivets and applied pieces of chased work.

I shot this because I am carving some greenware  at the moment. The pieces I was given to work on aren’t thick enough for this kind of relief  buy it will still be interesting to see how it fires.

The back of this scribe/king statue is elegant and timeless.

Part of the crowd in the new roman collection.  We had come to the museum to see the mosaic floor recently discovered in Israel only to find that  that exhibit closed last Sunday. . .

 

Having made a cuirass  for Adi last Christmas, I’m aware of them in a different way now, I took this  for Adi along with some of the other shots of ancient armor.

Colman in the Greek hall.

Some Greek Silver

A breast plate, one of three Greek pieces in  this display case.

A helment with eyebrows.

A silver strainer, in the following photo, a side view with a ladle.

 

The Bayonne Bridge, completed in 1928, is about to go under renovation. The road bed will be raised so that the newer larger container ships will be able to pass under it.  Contemporary images of the bridge or inspired by the bridge produced by local artists make up a lot of the show.

The Noble Collection is a fine museum located on the grounds of Snug Harbor. Here’s a link to the museum website. It will take you to the calendar where you can see videos about Snug Harbor and the Noble collection.

Colman and I went to the show’s opening and artist reception last Thursday night. This is the walkway in front of the four Federalist buildings, the face of Snug Harbor, at twilight.

Inside, a crowd had already begun to gather.  It was almost as if everyone there had arrived  in person from my FaceBook page.

One of the artists, Vincent Verdi, (with glasses on his head ) is talking with friends in front of Bill Murphy’s large watercolor view from the bridge.

Kristopher and Robert talking in front of Mark Ruffo’s large painting of the Bayonne Bridge.

Ed Davin, a painter and print maker, in the center.

Bob and Joyce

 

Tim Moran and Craig Mannister with a lady I don’t know. A link to Craig’s work.

Elizabeth Egbert, president and CEO of the Staten Island Museum talks with a friend.

Michael McWeeney, photographer, made videos that are being shown in the Noble Collection and are on the museum web site. His website is here.  Colman, in his hat, stands in the left side of my photo.

An old neighbor, Barry.

Denise Mumm in front of the unknown lady,  Robert and Bob in the crowd.

Chris and Amy.

Kristopher Johnson, photographer.  His work at Deep Tanks.

Michael talking with a sailing friend.

Erin Urban, the Noble Collection Executive Director.

Bill Murphy has an extraordinary large watercolor in the show. Bill’s work at Biddington’s.

Michael and Vincent with other visitors. An article about Vincent’s work.

The walkway after dark.

The Neptune Fountain lighting our way home.

I have mounted the PaperWorks 2011 Show at ArtHaus NY in Staten Island. It’s an intimate show of art and craft works that are mostly made of paper.  The  Gallery Window  displays a piece by Victoria Bellenger and a 2 panel screen I made with my paste papers.

This is one of two of my paste paper tapestries in the show.

Paper reliefs from nature are by Judith Eloise Hooper are in  frames, the book work screen is by Helen Levin, the cast paper torsos are  by Susan Grabel and the paste paper boxes are mine.

These wonderfully whimsical wire and paper sculptures are by Sandra Henke.

These ceramic items are in the show because the ceramic effects were created by the mixture of paper into the clay before they were fired. The paper mixture allows the potter to make something not possible with regular clay. These bowls were made by Steve Nutt.

This is also my work, a 7 foot tall, 4 panel Japanese style paper screen. The other side is in the background of the photo above. The papers were hand painted and gilded with 23 karat gold in ribbons and flakes. The PaperWorks Show will be up until the end of the month.

A week ago Saturday we met our friend Tibor in Brooklyn. He wanted to show us the Greenwood Cemetery. It was an incredibly windy, overcast day and the idea of being outside in a cemetery was the last thing I could have imagined doing. Colman and I took the ferry to Manhattan and trains to Brooklyn where we met Tibor, he had a car and drove us the few blocks to Greenwood Cemetery. I was not prepared for the sight of it. It’s a 200 year old cemetery that was at one time a more popular tourist destination than Niagra Falls attracting 500,000 visitors annually (like this blog. . .).  Our first stop  was this chapel

The  landscape is hilly and the cemetery is vast.  This is a view from the front of the chapel, a village of mausoleums.  This is the cemetery that inspired all those  interesting, romantic graveyards we see in films.

The decorative detail on the chapel is in especially high relief.

One of the the large stained glass windows.

The chandelier in the sanctuary. 

A row of Celtic Cross monuments, the cemetery is a fantasy land of monuments and mausoleums, all kinds of sculpture and miniature architecture cover the landscape for acres and acres.

The entrance gate house as seen from the inside as we were leaving. 

Our next stop was International (Food) Fairway in Red Hook. We walked along a paved ‘Boardwalk’  to enter the back door where we were to have lunch. This shot across the  New York Harbor has a piece of Staten Island on the left of the horizon, a piece of the arc of the Bayonne Bridge left of center and the rest is the container port in Elizabeth, New Jersey where cranes reach for the sky. 

This is the back of the International Fairway building that faces the harbor. It was nice to see a preserved (but not restored) trolley with a piece of its catenary system overhead.

Turning around, with the trolley at my back, the view centered on the Statue of Liberty across the agitated harbor.

Turning again toward the South, the Verrazano Bridge is visible on the horizon.

On the front side of the International Fairway building, just outside of the parking lot, stands this unusual house.

There is a large Nursery near by, it was closed but in the back of it near the harbor they had planted open garden of vegetables and gourds, I think Tibor said it was planned for children. 

On the way to another warehouse we passed this single boat ramp, the high winds made the water behave  like a shore with high surf.

Here I’m standing in Red Hook looking West, The red buildings are on Governor’s Island and the Goldman Sachs tower is in New Jersey.

Tibor dropped us off on Atlantic Avenue where we were to attend the opening of a show at the Gooseneck Barnacle later in the evening.  We did some spice  shopping at Sahadi’s and I bought turkish delight  and sesame rings at a lebanese bakery.  This bronze railing is outside of a former bank that has become Trader Joe’s.

The relief here is very flat. Recently I have been interested in the circular motifs, I have a set of copper bowls that I want to chase but haven’t had time to draw any animals in circles yet.  This border had animals that I might never have considered.

It was getting dark as we headed back to the Goose Barnacle for the opening. This one store was already in Halloween garb. 

It was difficult taking photos at the opening, there were a lot of people and I couldn’t get the clear shots I would have liked to take.  My friend David Alperin from last spring’s class  at FIT  is opening the store/gallery on Atlantic Avenue. It’s called the Goose Barnacle.  He’s carrying a line of menswear by Christophe Hascoat and the first art show is of paintings by Aldo Pizzi. Here are some shots of the opening.

Here’s David Alperin, the store’s owner.

Here’s Colman talking with Christophe Hascoat.The painter Aldo Pizzi is the bearded guy on the left. 

I’m still playing catch up with the photos I took this summer. There’s one more entry  for the July trip and I haven’t even looked at the Santa Fe photos yet. I am busy with the store and last weekend there was a post-Labor day gathering at the Branchifortes and two openings for the Staten Island Second Saturday. I’ll mix it up a little, first some news and then some of the older stuff.

Art on the Fence, September 12, 2010

Sunday the annual Art on the Fence Show was held until it was rained out in late afternoon. The rain, while needed, was particularly annoying  because we have had a virtual drought all summer; Colman an I have had  to go outside in the heat to water the azaleas and rhododendrons,  grass has not grown and the ground in the back yard is hard as cement with dryness. For it to mist all morning and continually, lightly shower the rest of the day of an annual, out door, one-day event was really disappointing.

Here are a few shots of our set up, we were showing Colman’s prints of his drawings for the first time.  And some of the event at our end of the fence.  The brown thing on the right side of the first photo is the back of our mirror, I really should do something about that. . .

The view from behind our tables to works that are hung on the fence.

Now back to the summer photos.

Fenimore Art Museum

The rain on this day cut some of our sight seeing short too. It was the last day of our trip and we wanted to visit the Fenimore Art Museum just outside of Cooperstown.

The wooden in the field is the back of a north west indian totem pole.

This is a board used to emboss decorations on colonial era ginger bread.

The galleries are well laid out and the permanent collection has a number of unusual pieces. 

I took this picture of a pen and ink drawing of Mount Vernon because it was done by a woman who lived in Danielson, CT where Adi and Sabine live.  Mount Vernon was saved and preserved by a group of women, one of whom made this drawing.

A folk art St George and a dragon made of telephone wire. 

I liked this portrait for the trumpet. The whole thing seems to be animated and collaged. 

We also saw the Sargent show of women’s portraits, no cameras were allowed there.  Below is a photo of a dining area that overlooks the garden.

The real highlight at the museum is the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art.  There are remarkably fresh examples of work from tribes all across North America, pottery, clothing, implements and masks that look as though they were just finished with perfect feathers. I was impressed by  masks for horses. one in particular was beaded with several representations of the American Flag.  These last two shots are of part of the study collection; I like the trend for museums to have ‘open storage’ areas like this.  We discovered an enormous section like this at the Met in NY  this summer too.

It was a beautiful, if a bit warm, day yesterday. It was the occasion of the first Raritan Bay Arts Festival held on the grounds of the Conference House on Staten Island. There were displays of crafts, some food, demonstrations of Kayak making and, in the afternoon, live music performances.

Steve Nutt, of Friends of Fire, organized the artisan part of the festival; he’s the founder of Friends of Fire which has been an association of artisans, mostly potters, for over 10 years. I recently joined the group and we (a few members of the group) have opened a brick and mortar store in the Stapleton section of Staten Island. You can see the store on it’s faceBook page.

Here are some photos of the event. When I took the photos I was focusing mostly on the participants who are members of the store rather than the entire event. I was there mainly to show my work and couldn’t leave my table for very long.  This is a wide shot of the Crafts area, my ‘tent’ is in the right side of the photo in the back. Steve  is the guy in shorts, his head is framed by the second tent from the right.

Toni, who started, who Casterbridge Fair store in Stapleton, is sitting with her hand made pillows. Janice, another store member, is in black sunglasses with her hand dyed silk scarves near Toni.

This is Judith,  she makes charming ceramic teapots and tableware.  You can see them on the  Friends of Fire at Casterbridge Fair  faceBook page .

Me with my display. I’ll put shots of the whole display up at the bottom of this entry.

Here’s Steve with his new line of majolica on display.

Our friend Christy, another potter, with her New York  ’Delft’.

This guy makes Kayaks. I like the model with pontoons and  a mast. It looks like it should come from Hawaii.

These painted kayaks were on display. I like the one with the three eyes. I think of it as insurance that  you won’t lose your way if the boat is carefully watching your drift.

Here are the shots of my work, from one end of the table to the other.

Colman spent most of the time water coloring.

New earrings in dichroic glass on the left side of the board with a collection of Pearl and Stone  sets. Earrings from an earlier ‘Glass Period’ on the right.

I’ll open this entry with a shot of my display for Art by the Ferry  which took place the first two weekends of  June. The photo was taken by  our friend Sarah Yuster. It turned out to be a successful show. It was on the tail of that energy that I made the following new pieces for the upcoming show this weekend at the Conference House on the southern tip of Staten Island.  It is to be the first Raritan Bay Arts Festival.  Wish us luck and temperate weather.

I have just finished this long silver chain with faceted, polished aquamarine nuggets and hammered silver rings. I loved these stones the minute I saw them, I have others that will be wired together in the byzantine style as the summer progresses. 

Here’s a close up. The hammered silver rings flash and sparkle when the chain moves.

I finished this chain of triplets at the beginning of the week: a choker made of  polished aquamarine stones in a freeform cube shape with large round freshwater pearls, there are matching earrings.  The hook works in all of the large rings and the piece could probably be worn doubled as a bracelet.

This is a collection of earrings and a few pendants in stone and glass that I put together for summer and evening wear.

I also worked on the Lion Cup this week, It will take a little longer  than I expected getting it finished and ready for wine. There’s a lot of polishing to be done on the inside and on the lip. Here’s a photo of the cup as it came from the electro form mold.  We have ordered another one.

On the 14th of this month we went to an opening at the College of Staten Island to attend the opening for an exhibition of Tracey Jones paintings. I was attracted by the invitation image and knew I had to go to see the work. I was not disappointed.  When we arrived there were a number of people already there and a photographer was shooting the show.

Tracey was talking with her friend and I asked if they would stand for a picture.  Colman likes the painting ‘Table’ behind Tracey’s friend.

Here are some shots of the gallery during our visit.

The blue canvas titled ‘Etruria’ was on the invitation.

Behind this trio, the gray canvas, ‘Large Fence’.

Colman talking with Craig Manister, also a painter and supervisor of this gallery at the college.

One of the paintings that I enjoyed seeing,  ’Sign 5′.

As we were leaving, a final shot of the gallery.

The sun was beginning to set on a beautiful Spring day.  These photos were taken just outside of the Center for the Arts buildiing.