Flashback Friday

I had my first one man show at Te-Ma Gallery on Mill Hill Road in Woodstock, NY in late 1988. Te-Ma was an artful furniture and accessory shop shepherded by a lovely, statuesque German woman named Dorothy Telson.  I walked in one day and said "Hey, my art would look great in here!" She was up for it so I brought down some work from my studio in Bearsville where I was working for Sally Avery summers 1987 through 1990. Dorothy loved my work, it was a go.  The show turned out to be fruitful for us both. At the time I painted geometric color fields along with large drawings like the one in the article, which I sold. Far from what I would end up doing and certainly far from where I am now....  More of a photographer than anything else.

My opening was Thanksgiving weekend... Saturday November 26, 1988. It was attended by the entire Avery family, friends from in and around Woodstock, my family and my closest friends from SVA. After the opening we had a casual dinner at The Woodstock Pub, afterwards my friends took me down to Dover, NJ to see Pinetop Perkins at The Show Place -  a long drive from Woodstock, NY.  The celebration went on to daybreak the next day.

Dorothy extended my show through the winter of 1989 and I sold a few pieces. This article was written by  local personality/art critic Dakota Lane. She even interviewed me over the phone at the art gallery I worked at in Fairlawn, NJ.  It seems like ancient times now yet my memories of that night are crystal clear - full of the bright palette of my paintings, the cold mountain air, the love of my friends n' family. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flashback Friday. 10.08.2023

 

 

 

Veteran' Day

 

My father owned only two Johnny Cash Albums - Show Time on Sun Records and Johnny Cash's Greatest Hits Volume 1 on Columbia. He played them often. But especially when he was cleaning or polishing the furniture. Once, when it was just the two of us ( I was either nine of ten years old), he was playing the Columbia compilation and took pause from his chores to listen intently to The Ballad of Ira Hayes - it was almost as if he knew this Ira Hayes. I listened along but really, at age 9/10,  lot of it was beyond me... so I asked him about it. He got thoughtful for a minute and then told me, as simply as possible, who Ira Hayes was. Ira Hayes was an American Indian who served his country & helped raise the American Flag at Iwo Jima February 23, 1945. He was born a Pima Indian in Arizona and was raised, in poverty, on a reservation and enlisted in The Marine Corp in (August 1942). He not only helped raise the flag that day but he also helped identify the others who  were alongside him. As a post war civilian Ira suffered from what we now call PTSD (though no one knew about this until the late eighties) and alcoholism. This hero became a destitute alcoholic who would eventually die of exposure and alcohol poisoning in a ditch on January 23, 1955. (On November 10, 1954 he attended the dedication of the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia, which was modeled after the photograph of Hayes and five other Marines raising the second flag on Iwo Jima.) My father had his own post war demons that he battled right on up until his death in May 1983. Known on his jobs as "The Whistler" my father, throughout his life, whistled the Ballad of Ira Hayes ( written by NYC Folk musician Peter LeFarge).

Our Veterans sacrificed everything for our freedom while experiencing the unthinkable. And more often than not, they have suffered in great silence. Around late 1969 my brother's best friend Alan Vogel returned from Vietnam missing the lower part of his left leg and was partially blind in his left eye sporting an intense facial scar. I remember how hard and sad it was to see him when he arrived home to Pearl River, NY. I also remember how much time my father spent with him over cans of Schlitz Beer in our kitchen whenever he came over. And I remember my father doing his very best to explain it to me. When Vietnam Veterans came home they were literally spit upon by Leftists - who, as we see now, are always on the wrong side of everything. Many experience drug addiction, crippling depression, (PTSD) . Too many are still homeless and suffering. Pathetic, since we owe them everything. Thank a Veteran whenever you can, I do. And do what you can.

Wounded Warrior Project 

Tunnel to Towers Foundation

Disabled American Veterans

The Virtual Vietnam Veterans Wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

...wait for it...