RED HOOK TEMPTER

October 16, 2011.  I am on my way to the closing of the BWAC Fall Show.  I take my favorite bus ride and I see this portrait as I ride by.  I know I have to go back.  I want to liberate you from this fence.  But I have no tools, and not the will to do this thing, to remove you from your designated place.  Will you be there later?  How will your form weather the coming frost, the winter, this season's sun?  This is your place, you will manage as best you can, as you were intended to do by whomever made you.  I will look for you again.  And in the darkness I will want to take you with me.

A VIEW BEYOND

September 18, 2011.  A view out the window on a clear day at the what is left of a factory on the waterfront.  All that remains are the bones of what was once a thriving scene where hundreds were employed in a backbreaking job.  Now it sits, picturesque on blue waters, framed by the window I had earlier opened to let in the crisp afternoon air. It has been painted, photographed, eulogized, romanticized, its roughness forgotten in a world that has moved along.  We no longer wish to toil with our hands in this way - we leave that to others as we pursue finer things.

TEAR AWAY

March 10, 2011. The artist Elspeth Meyer created a subway series of collage faces, which she has slowly unveiled at successive shows at BWAC. I anticipate with eagerness her studies of the people that she observes on and off the trains. Here, under CPW at 96th street, an unnamed artist creates observations of their own, but from the billboards that line most platforms. I like that selective tearing away reveals a layer of random color and shifts the face into another dimension, unknown except for the fact that I know.

THE SACRED

October 16, 2010. My first day volunteering at BWAC. As I left, walking down the pier, I saw an image of the Virgin being borne aloft by an angel. It was cut in an oval and glued to a black painted door. I stopped, and after snapping an image, the owner came to see what I was doing. He had a better image inside, he said, and not thinking I went in. There, on the wall over his unmade bed with this image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Virgin of all the Americas, he said. The background, her wall, like a Zen sand garden raked smooth but for the pattern created by the rake. He was so proud of this, his symbol of devotion, perhaps a source of protection, or maybe one of comfort.

A LOT OF ART

October 25, 2009. October 25, 2009. I saw a lot of art today because I went to BWAC, the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. I usually try to go twice during the course of each show, and I am always happy I did, although transportation problems almost got the best of me. But hey, I’m a New Yorker, and a little thing like the subway isn’t running to where you want to go, just can’t stop you, especially when there is art at the end of the line. There are so many people showing their work, and each of them that I meet is so proud to be there, and they really want you to see their work, and they are really eager to talk about it. I didn’t take a picture, but if you follow the link to Philip’s blog spot, The Artpoint, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I have my favorites, of course, and some times I have new favorites, but that just means that I have connected to someone's work that I didn't connect to last time. It's always a delight.