You catch photos like these sometimes. Recently, I had the distinct honor of curating Bill Ronald's Recent Works Show at the University Gallery. I had enough shots left in my camera (after taking video for podcast) to get a few pictures. I really like this one, as it captures what is really the best about being at St. John's, working in DoFA-the sense of community. Bill-I salute you! Despite Bill's protests regarding his appearance on video, most of his informative lecture was captured and is posted as a podcast at this link: DoFA PodcastIf it wasn't obvious, you will need iTunes to download and view the podcast.

A thanks to all who've taken time to visit the site and proffer suggestions for improvement or just send a compliment. I've down-sampled the images at the galleries to a more "dial-up friendly" size. and have attempted to prune the various errors throughout the site. My go-to contact on the gallery download time is David Milne, who has dial-up in the GWN (Great White North). If you're reading D., let me know if the download times are much better. This has been kind of fun. I've been given a reason to contact and hear from friends I have not been in touch with for a while. Cheers!

Went to the Brooklyn Museum's Luce collection, where they have a impressive range of early American naive art. I took a shot of this example they have of scrimshaw dated to about 1830. Scrimshaw is basically carving into the enamel of a whale's tooth or bone surface with a sharp object and rubbing in lamp black or tobacco juice to darken the lines. This one is on the tooth of a sperm whale. Something to put in your trivial facts file is, that the maker of a scrimshaw is called a scrimhander. I really liked this portrait (self?) of a young whaler out of America's northeast. It really has a power to it, possessing all that is needing to make a good portrait, including a frame. I like the sense of wind given by the ribbon on the hat. No, it's not a deep, physiological survey of the sitter, but there is a sweetness to it. On the opposite side, there is a portrait of a young woman, though it's impossible to see due to the way the tooth is mounted. Husband & wife? There was no indication that this was the case--romantics can speculate. The patterns are interesting too, very intricate, pyramids on the bottom with floral/leaf design up top. You won't see much scrimshaw made these days, with whales being endangered and all.I took this picture by placing my camera lens right against the glass so there was minimal shake and no reflection. Enjoy.

As it turns out, our home is near Laguardia. We're not so close that the planes fly right over head, but we can get an eyeful of them whenever we want. Here's a nice shot of one crossing the Moon. I've tried this a number of times and I just got a blur or nothing at all. This time I finally got the shot.

Welcome to my blog. I'll post images and other things I find interesting on these pages. I cannot promise to make any of this truly interesting, but that is the nature of blogs I guess-words by amateurs. I'm on break this week and finally got this site up. I've built a number of sites, yet just like the cobbler whose kids go without shoes, I haven't really had an update to my web presence in almost 12 years! This would explain the dated photograph I'm posting here. It's from Christo's "Gates installation from Central Park That is yours truly leaning against one of those structures. Somehow I thought the intention was to mount the Gates during the summer months. As you can see--in the photo--it was put up in early spring. I imagine the graphic impact would have been much better if the orange color of these gates been set off against summer foliage. I guess Christo was lucky to get them up at all. Though , generally, I'm not a fan of Christo's efforts, I must say this is the first time I can remember the activity of an artist getting onto the front page of the NY Times and getting people in the street talking about art. Like it or hate it, it got you thinking. After this sojourn through the park, Val and I went off to the Algonquin's Oak Room and hung out with a selection of INX artists and Jacek Malek (Director of the Triangle Gallery). All in all, a very full day. This nice photo is courtesy of Val.