Pumpkins for Barbara

Every year some of Barbara's friends get together to carve pumpkins for her porch. Years past we worked together with Norm Ives to create pumpkins for Barbara's porch. Call these pumpkins Norm, Barbara, Friendly, Loving or tradition. They are for Barbara. Two of them were grown from seeds captured from last year's pumpkin and next year's will be grown from fat slippery seeds saved from this year's. Such is tradition.

Carvers: Ed Eicher, Jim Horn, HM Bateman, Rick & Elaine Hardman, Pete Midgley, Allison Midgley, The Great Pumpkin.

Thanks to Barbara Cobb for supplying some of the pumpkins.

Sol LeWitt Scibble part 2

The Sol LeWitt Scribble Drawing continues to advance with more than a hundred hours of pencil contact to the walls of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery each day. One of the people penciling this historic piece is Wellsville’s Allison Midgley, Technology Coordinator at the David Howe Library and mixed media artist.

Midgley’s on leave from the Library for 8 weeks during each of which she will practice 42 hours of precision drawing flowing from first one hand and then the other.

Midgley said, “The drawing is about our ability to collaborate, coordinate and communicate. Each artist works in an area for some hours and then moves to another area. In this way each artist has the chance to give the work a personal impression while we also blend the many styles into the whole.”

The drawing was commissioned in 2006 by gallery director Louis Grachos. Sol LeWitt (American, 1928-2007) finished the design, producing an artist sketch, computer generated plans and a maquette (model) before his sad death in 2007. Following his vision, work at the Albright-Knox began this August.

The process involves drawing chaotic, rounded scribbles across the 2200 square feet of wall to create LeWitt’s intertwined pipes. The piece is the largest of LeWitt’s 1261 wall drawings.

While working, the artists look closely, many of them holding a shop light in one hand and a pencil in the other. They lean forward moving the light and turning their heads watching and evaluating as they trail graphite over the wall. They stand or sit on floors or scaffold boards or reach through spaces to contact the different parts of the wall – in some places 22 feet tall.

They examine the work up close and from a distance. The piece is about chaos making precision - about small becoming great. The team of artists and artisans blend their hands into a single work of art. In the end scribbles become pipes bending, pushing out from and stretching across the 3 interior walls of the stairwell – including 2 inside corners - another unique feature for this work.

From a few feet, the lines present disarray but stepping back the lines advance with continuous gradations somehow changing into crisp divisions where the “pipes” meet at right angles and diverge with clear boundaries. Boundaries made of controlled chaos. They do it by always drawing with the same amount of pressure and the same line quality but by changing the density of the lines. The layered lines create texture and become reflective surfaces.

Midgley said that it’s been interesting to see how the lead use changes. “On the first days, each person went through several leads or pencils daily and then as the density of lines within an area increased, it took less lead to make more apparent change. It’s a study in contrasts.”

“Honored,” is the word she uses when she muses over her role in the drawing. Midgley received her undergraduate degree art from the University of Dallas in 1988 and moved to Wellsville in 1990. At the Library she coordinates computers with patrons, staff and materials. During off time she makes mixed media art, rides her bike and practices yoga.

“Yesterday,” she said, “I just looked around and thought, I’m part of this. I’m involved in this.”

So, is every line important? “Yes,” Midgley said. “If you pulled one out, you’d see where it had been. Each line builds on preceding lines. They are all part of the whole, part of the texture. We look at the small area but think of the large. Each line matters.”

It is estimated that the artists will put pencils down early in October and that, possibly, on October 12 clear sealant will be applied to protect the delicate graphite lines. Then the plastic will come down and scaffolds will be removed and the warren of steel pipes that seem to pull the walls into rounded, burnished steel forms will be open to visitors from around the world.

Until then, at the bottom of the stairs, there is a sign stating that the crew includes “painters, printmakers, illustrators, architects and one librarian.”

By mid October all of their names will stand proudly for decades as this industrial image shines in one of the country’s premier modern art galleries in this old, manufacturing city.

Elaine Hardman is a potter, member of the Allegany Artisans and friend of Allison Midgley. Elaine grew up on the corner of Hertel and Delaware Avenues in Buffalo, NY. -Support for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s exhibitions and installations are provided, in part, by the Seymour H. Knox Foundation, the John R. Oishei Foundation and the Margaret Wendt Foundation.

Wellsville artist adding to the Albright Knox

Early in my life there was an incident with a bobby pin as a scribble-device. Looking back through 55 years of cobwebbed time, I faintly see varnish dust fly from the broken tip of a black bobby pin. The scribble grew, intertwined and danced with movement and intricacy.

Unfortunately my creativity involved a treasured parlor end table. I remember my mother’s crestfallen face as she rubbed the table top in disbelief and despair.

Many of us likely have early life scribble experiences ranging from achievement to disaster. At the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo scribble lives as noun, verb and art as a team of artists, printmakers and architects scribble over walls bridging the 1905 gallery with the 1962 wing with the installation of the last, the largest and possibly the most intricate of the world’s Sol LeWitt drawings.

Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) created structures, drew, made prints and painted, showing his work at hundreds of solo exhibitions around the world from 1965 onward. He was interested in music, mathematics, architecture, line, process, communication and ideas. Over 1200 of his works were huge, architectural drawings executed by crews as is this Scribble Drawing at the Albright-Knox.

The team working now in Buffalo includes head draftsman Takeshi Arita and 4 assistants from the Sol LeWitt Studio in New York, 2 Albright-Knox Art Handlers and 9 apprentices including librarian/printmaker/mixed media artist Allison Midgley of Wellsville. For 8 weeks the crew will draw millions of layered, chaotic scribbles that will, over time and from a distance, become an ordered, precise drawing covering 2200 square feet.

Now, in week three, the artists enter a scaffold area covered in taped plastic sheets housing ladders. The air, filled with graphite motes – escapees from the process - is forced through a filtration system that drones during work periods. Zippers in the plastic allow entry and exit. Disposable booties over shoes trap some dirt and on either side of entry points sticky floor mats are tattooed with graphite footprints.

The plastic walls defining the work area were constructed weeks ago and the scaffolding held painters who covered the walls with 2 coats of oil based paint and then 5 more of latex – sanding between coats - giving the walls the look and feel of paper.

On the uniform surface, the artists measured out the drawing, masking areas with craft paper and labeling it in white chalk numbers with each number indicating a level of density of line. They had a short lesson in basic scribble technique and started turning graphite into the first of millions of lines. They created flowing curves, sharpening the lead by pulling it against the surface of the wall, bending and turning their hands over the lines, becoming ever more graceful as they worked and received individual coaching.

Like many huge undertakings this is not work for the faint of heart - or arm. They work 6 days a week/ 7 hours a day with lunch and an afternoon break. While at the wall, they are asked to be in the moment with intense concentration. “Be present,” Arita tells them. “Don’t be automatic. Each person is an artist. What you do makes the whole thing work.”

Could they cut the number of drawing hours from the estimated 5,000 if they used brushes? Sprayers? Chalk? Not if they want to accomplish the goal. To give the effect required, the drawing must be of many lines, layered and focused.

The apprentices and draftsmen draw crisp, even, whispers of graphite that build on each other to create the visual roar of millions of butterfly wings. The many lines give the drawing depth so that now, 3 weeks into the project, the densely filled areas look luminous. From one side, they are rich velvet and from another point of view they become huge pipes of burnished steel. The surfaces reflect light as if mirrors. All from a simple pencil.

Sol LeWitt began his drawing career in the 60s with pencil on walls – radical for the time and, according to Ilana Chlebowski, Curatorial Assistant at the Alright-Kinox, still radical.

LeWitt explored paints and colors, shapes and shadows, lines and angles over the decades. To give an idea of his stature, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (with Williams College Museum of Art) opened an exhibition of LeWitt’s work that will be on view for 25 years and offers 105 drawings covering nearly an acre of wall space.

Pieces for that exhibit were among the last works LeWitt created before his death in 2007. They were created with the materials he used in 1960 and returned to – the pencil on a wall. Now, this crew of artists is bringing his last huge graphite, wall project to the world.

Allison Midgley saw the notice of Scribble Wall Line Drawing while surfing the internet. She mulled it over reading through the criteria and applied for the position after learning that she could take a leave of absence from her job at the David A. Howe Library. She put forth her art with her willingness to commit to the 8 week task and after time was thrilled to be accepted.

Part II

The Sol LeWitt Scribble Drawing continues to advance with more than a hundred hours of pencil contact to the walls of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery each day. One of the people penciling this historic piece is Wellsville’s Allison Midgley, Technology Coordinator at the David Howe Library and mixed media artist.

Midgley’s on leave from the Library for 8 weeks during each of which she will practice 42 hours of precision drawing flowing from first one hand and then the other.

Midgley said, “The drawing is about our ability to collaborate, coordinate and communicate. Each artist works in an area for some hours and then moves to another area. In this way each artist has the chance to give the work a personal impression while we also blend the many styles into the whole.”

The drawing was commissioned in 2006 by gallery director Louis Grachos. Sol LeWitt (American, 1928-2007) finished the design, producing an artist sketch, computer generated plans and a maquette (model) before his sad death in 2007. Following his vision, work at the Albright-Knox began this August.

The process involves drawing chaotic, rounded scribbles across the 2200 square feet of wall to create LeWitt’s intertwined pipes. The piece is the largest of LeWitt’s 1261 wall drawings.

While working, the artists look closely, many of them holding a shop light in one hand and a pencil in the other. They lean forward moving the light and turning their heads watching and evaluating as they trail graphite over the wall. They stand or sit on floors or scaffold boards or reach through spaces to contact the different parts of the wall – in some places 22 feet tall.

They examine the work up close and from a distance. The piece is about chaos making precision - about small becoming great. The team of artists and artisans blend their hands into a single work of art. In the end scribbles become pipes bending, pushing out from and stretching across the 3 interior walls of the stairwell – including 2 inside corners - another unique feature for this work.

From a few feet, the lines present disarray but stepping back the lines advance with continuous gradations somehow changing into crisp divisions where the “pipes” meet at right angles and diverge with clear boundaries. Boundaries made of controlled chaos. They do it by always drawing with the same amount of pressure and the same line quality but by changing the density of the lines. The layered lines create texture and become reflective surfaces.

Midgley said that it’s been interesting to see how the lead use changes. “On the first days, each person went through several leads or pencils daily and then as the density of lines within an area increased, it took less lead to make more apparent change. It’s a study in contrasts.”

“Honored,” is the word she uses when she muses over her role in the drawing. Midgley received her undergraduate degree art from the University of Dallas in 1988 and moved to Wellsville in 1990. At the Library she coordinates computers with patrons, staff and materials. During off time she makes mixed media art, rides her bike and practices yoga.

“Yesterday,” she said, “I just looked around and thought, I’m part of this. I’m involved in this.”

So, is every line important? “Yes,” Midgley said. “If you pulled one out, you’d see where it had been. Each line builds on preceding lines. They are all part of the whole, part of the texture. We look at the small area but think of the large. Each line matters.”

It is estimated that the artists will put pencils down early in October and that, possibly, on October 12 clear sealant will be applied to protect the delicate graphite lines. Then the plastic will come down and scaffolds will be removed and the warren of steel pipes that seem to pull the walls into rounded, burnished steel forms will be open to visitors from around the world.

Until then, at the bottom of the stairs, there is a sign stating that the crew includes “painters, printmakers, illustrators, architects and one librarian.”

By mid October all of their names will stand proudly for decades as this industrial image shines in one of the country’s premier modern art galleries in this old, manufacturing city.

Elaine Hardman is a potter, member of the Allegany Artisans and friend of Allison Midgley. Elaine grew up on the corner of Hertel and Delaware Avenues in Buffalo, NY.

Support for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s exhibitions and installations are provided, in part, by the Seymour H. Knox Foundation, the John R. Oishei Foundation and the Margaret Wendt Foundation.

The Albright Knox Art Gallery is located at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York. Call 716.882.8700. Summer hours are noon to 5 Tuesday through Saturday. Admission for adults $12, Students and Seniors $8. Driving time from Wellsville is near 2 hours. Parking fees apply in the front lot but is free at the rear of the buildings.

More about the project at www.Albrightknox.org.

A little dance after lunch at Better Days

Senior Thesis Show Allison R. Craver

There’s pottery in our kitchen. Honestly, there’s pottery all over our house but more is in the kitchen. Functional work, food-related stuff – that’s what my hands do with clay and how my mind sees stoneware so when Allison Craver said that her pottery rarely belongs in a kitchen my brain hiccuped.

Allison came to Alfred for art with no intention of working with ceramics. She came for the solid and sensible reason that the School of Art and Design is a good deal. When she began exploring what Alfred offered she found herself absorbed by clay – the challenges of clay’s technical issues, the varied systems for construction and the chemistry that creates and solves problems all drew her in but then she realized the soft side of clay. The community.

She became entwined with the many layers of friendship and camaraderie that the ceramics community offers. Students have to work together to load and fire a kiln; to share the space inside the fire chambers; to move the massive weight of bricks and shelves and work. Clay students rely on each other because they have to and then because that’s the way they work.

Allison is interested in personal spaces and sculptural forms. She makes bedroom boxes, forms that could be used to hold coins, jewelry, keepsakes, special things but not food. Soap dishes are in her realm; oatmeal bowls are not. She works with a series of molds so her pieces are constructed in segments but are of varied size and texture. The detail in them caught my eye when I roamed the senior work area one day so I asked to talk with her.

Allison attributes her interest in art to her family. “I grew up in an artistic, creative household and didn’t realize till later that some parents don’t make things.”

She began actively drawing in a sketch book when she was six and she just carried it around drawing her cat and things in her house. For now, Allison seems interested in what she is trying to accomplish thought she seems not to like all her work - not an unusual situation when one is so immersed in a project and seeking some ideal. She looks at her outcomes and finds the next direction to continue her work.

The work she will display at her Senior Thesis Show on Saturday will include a variety of her special boxes posed on pedestals decorated with terra cotta clay pressed into molds to create large plinth structures. The structures will be about stability; the boxes – fragility; the process – an evolving understanding of space.

For the summer Allison Craver will be at Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine. After that it’s intense work for four or five years and then maybe grad school.
To see the work of clay, fabric, paint and ideas at the Senior Thesis shows be on the Alfred University Campus from about 4 till 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 7.

Interesting insect caught in a bag - inspiration comes from many sources.

StoneFlowerPottery

In 1974 I sat at a potter's kickwheel and gave it such a solid push that I knocked myself backwards to the clay-spattered floor. That first kickwheel was at the Robinson Center for Crafts in Binghamton. Later I studied at Touchstone Center for Crafts in Pennsylvania and then worked at home while I studied with Pete Nye at SUNY Alfred and participated in shows at the Herrick Library.
I was lucky enough to work at the School of Art and Design, Alfred University Summer Clay programs with John Gill several times and in 2004 joined a group of Alfred University students to travel to Jingdezhen China to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of porcelain.
In 1998 I became a member of the Allegany Artisans and have served as a board member and officer ever since. I use an electric wheel and throw while standing firmly on 2 feet, no toppling over expected.


My hands force lumps of clay to be round, tall and wide in my little studio in our 1880s home along the Genesee River in Wellsville. I enjoy the rhythm of throwing and making miniatures with my fingertips as well as large forms with the force of all my body.
Large or small, whatever I am making, each pot is important. I sometimes feel that I reach into clay to touch earth and history, forming useful items by forcing clay between my hands and then using time and fire to harden the shapes. It is an honor to be a potter and to have bowls and creatures involved in the daily lives of people around the world.
I was recently honored by the Skutt Kiln Peep Show in Philadelphia at the National Council on Ceramic Arts Education conference and by being part of Starting Small at the Artist Knot in Andover.

Join me on Facebook at StoneFlowerPottery.

Belmont's Purple House Spring Show & Sale

When Pat Vossler told me that there was a time that she didn’t like antiques, my jaw dropped to her 100 year old carpet hitting, on the way down, antique glassware and photos. Her husband, Lew, changed her life in many ways from parenting two daughters to getting her interested in travel and by teaching her to love, and collect, antiques.

Pat lives in Belmont’s Purple House. Only a few years ago it was red, white and blue, striking in its own way but it didn’t look like it was dressed for high tea in the spring of 1890 like it does now. It needed to be painted so in trying to decide what to do Pat went to the Belmont Library and found a book about Victorian houses. She thumbed through it until she found one of those grand ladies done in shades of purple.

“Some people like it,” said Pat. “People knock at the door for permission to take photos but one woman looked at the house and asked if the paint had been on sale.”

“I wish,” was Pat’s laughing reply. It’s Pat’s Purple House and she likes it - a lot. Even the front lawn is sprinkled in purple forget-me-nots.



Inside are thousands of other colors because inside are thousands of other things but before describing any of those things, the house deserves a bit more time. It was built circa 1895 by Dr. Herbert A. Barney.


The March 22, 1907 issue of the Belmont Dispatch is my source of information about Dr. Barney. The entire front page holds eulogies and testimonials on the occasion of his death from quinsy at age 42. He was a doctor, town supervisor, the coroner and county jail physician. Clearly, he worked long hours with a deep sense of obligation to meet the needs of people, sometimes giving his patients money rather than charging them. The paper reports that over 1,000 people attended his funeral.

Legend has it that he was an inventor, that the second floor of his home was used as a home for elderly patients, that he experimented on himself in trying to develop new medicines but these are stories handed down from Lew Vossler to Pat and she doesn’t really know.

Clearly, Dr. Barney had the means to construct a marvelous house. Likely it had gas lamps then and multiple fireplaces. There is still a wood fireplace in the living room and the mantle from another fireplace stands in the dining room. There are two sets of pocket doors and the swinging door to the kitchen has a pair of hinges 8 inches long and large enough that a person could slip a garden hose inside.

The turret was in the original design as was the old tin roof which has lasted over 110 years (but due to be replaced this summer). After the Barney family left, the house was divided into apartments and went into decline until Lew and his first wife Jane Whitcomb purchased it with her parents in about 1940. Lew set to work restore the original glory with interior renovations and a new porch.

Pat’s favorite area is the dining room. It has the swinging door to the kitchen, a fabulous window with huge beveled glass panels as well as beveled diamonds. There is a large built-in china cupboard too. The walls and ceiling are papered in textured green and white and in the center is the table that Lew built. He built it right there in the dining room – it’s that big and heavy – and he caned the seats in several of the chairs that surround it.


Lew built a lot of things for Pat and he supported all her decorating ideas. They worked together to accessorize the house starting with his collection of antique boot jacks, door stops and tools. Then Pat got into it. There’s a little corner with souvenirs of the 14 European countries they traveled to. Then she started collecting hats and sometimes has tea parties where her guests all wear the hats.

Pat collected spoons from the many states she and Lew visited and she searched for and found hand painted photos by Wallace Nutting, a Presbyterian Minister from New England. In the kitchen is Pat’s teapot collection. She and her granddaughter washed them all recently and counted 58. One is from Cakes and Curious in Cuba. It is a divided pot with two spouts so it can steep and serve 2 teas at once.

She has a collection of dresses including her mother-in-law’s wedding dress and a celluloid collection of little boxes and pins. She collects old photos thinking that it’s sad that this bit of family history ends up in some rummage sale or antique shop. She gathers them up and takes care of them wishing she knew who that baby was or how life worked out for the smart gentleman with the mustache.



A lot of Pat’s things are like that. They are more made of memories than of wood, paint or china. The men’s hats were collected by Lew as they drove; the thermometers while driving along the old US highways during the 50s and 60s when they stayed at bed and breakfasts. The tea tiles, coin spoons, tea cups and dolls are important for what they represent as well as for their craftsmanship and beauty.


Pat’s respect and admiration for handcrafted work makes the Purple House a natural place for a craft show and so that’s why it has been the site of a Mother’s Day weekend craft show and sale for 3 years now.

Pat’s daughter is Kristen Vossler-Wigent, soap-maker and partner in Green Circle Grove. Also working as Green Circle Grove is Meredith Chilson who designs and sews totes, purses, bags, lunch bags and bitty bags. Together these ladies do a number of shows but they kick off the season with a tea party/sale in Pat’s kitchen.

Green Circle Grove often partners with Joan Sinclair with her cross stitch, weaving and and detailed needle work as well as with StoneFlowerPottery, locally known for Mommy Vases or Grandma Vases as well as all kinds of functional and fun pottery.

Green Circle Grove, StoneFlowerPottery and Joan Sinclair will be in the Purple House on Friday, May 6 from 11 till 6 and Saturday, May 7 from 10 till 4. Come over for tea and cookies and take home a handmade gift for Mother’s Day. Support the local economy and peek at Pat’s collections. White gloves and veiled hats optional.

For more information call 585 808 0385, visit GreenCircleGrove.com or find StoneFlowerPottery on Facebook.

Alfred Symphonic Band Concert, April 23

Trumpet and French horn solos abound in the next concert for Alfred University's Symphonic Band - 8 p.m. in Harder Hall on April 23rd. The guy behind the trumpet started playing when he was 9 years old – Alejandro Miranda-Bermudez.
At Spencerport Elementary, students were welcomed into the instrumental music program in fourth grade. Alejandro’s parents asked him if he was interested. “Sure,” he remembers saying.
Mr. Rossiter, the teacher, asked Alejandro what he’d like to play and the answer was, “Trumpet.”
There was no enticing Alejandro with trombones, saxophones or percussion toys – not once he decided that trumpets are, “loud, noisy and sounded awesome.” Decision made, on trumpet he started and on trumpet he stayed.
He played in symphonic bands from the start and in 8th grade joined the jazz band. Alejandro was accepted into the most demanding levels of band and so was able to travel around the country to perform. That he accepted the extra work and commitment is interesting because he claims to be “a little lazy” and says his parents “made” him practice. It doesn’t seem to be a lazy choice.
After high school, Alejandro thought he would go to his “top pick” – Fredonia - but appeased his parents with a visit to Alfred University and that was it. With the same certainty that he became a trumpet player, he selected Alfred. He says he can’t pinpoint why Alfred felt so right. (Maybe the campus was loud, noisy or in some way awesome that day.) AU accepts students in groups without forcing a minor in the field and that was a big plus. Alex knew that he wanted to keep music in his life but not as the focus of his study.
During his 4 years on campus, Alejandro spent a lot of time in the Miller Center and grew to appreciate the professors. “The people in Miller are great. You couldn’t ask for a better faculty.” smiled Alejandro. “Dr. Foster is an awesome professor and it’s been great learning from him.”
Alex has gotten to know the professors in Miller because somehow this “lazy” guy played with the Symphonic Band and Orchestra for 7 semesters each while shoehorning Brass Ensemble into 4 semesters and, for really loud and noisy stuff, managed a season of Pep Band. That’s a lot of time in Miller Hall with his trumpet all while maintaining high grades in his major field of Psychology. Alejandro said, “It’s about prioritizing and organizing.”
His favorite piece in this concert is Mother Earth composed by David Maslanka in 2006. The piece is the essence of musical variety - seemingly unrelated and disparate parts that come together and make sense when played well.
Next year Alejandro hopes to attend graduate school saying that in his field he needs an MS for most positions. Hopefully he’ll find one with an open band or orchestra policy such as AU.
On the other side of the Symphonic Band seating you’ll find Ben Esham with his French horn. Ben’s family found the level of organization and dedication needed to raise 4 children and get all of them to both violin and other (French horn, oboe and flute) lessons.
Benjamin is a senior at Alfred University and a member of the Symphonic Band set to perform on April 23rd. Benjamin talked about his experience with music, starting as a second grade violinist under the instruction of a husband and wife team’s elementary string program, a program that Benjamin’s younger siblings also attended. Right now the program is being threatened with budget cuts but Benjamin’s and other parents are working to keep the program intact – further evidence that the Esham family values all the embellishments that music can bring to life.
In addition to studying violin and horn, Benjamin also spent a bit of time with a trumpet in Jazz band and with a mellophone (what a flute player might see as a trumpet/French horn blend) for marching band. He finished his high school marching career as Drum Major, a task requiring conducting and leadership skills. The Geneseo band marched in street shows where Benjamin led 90 students from a high school population of 240. That’s impressive.
Geneseo’s band also traveled so Benjamin went to Charleston, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Trips like that mean intense rehearsals and a ton of fundraising too.
After high school, Benjamin chose Alfred University because of “a very nice scholarship” but also because he liked the location, the size of the school and that he could play in the band or orchestra without having to major in music. While Benjamin has spent uncounted hours in AU performance groups - Symphonic Orchestra for seven semesters, Symphonic Band for 8 semesters and all 4 years in Pep Band - he chose to minor in chemistry, not music.
Benjamin came to Alfred as a National Merit Scholar and he maintained high standards throughout his studies as shown by his induction into Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. His coursework was likely demanding because keeping that chemistry minor company is a pair of majors - math and physics. Benjamin plans to study theoretical high-energy physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after leaving Alfred.
Benjamin’s favorite piece in this concert is Sanctuary by Frank Tichelli. “It’s beautiful the whole way through. It’s soft and reflective at the start and builds to intensity in the middle but it’s consistently beautiful,” he feels.
The performance of Sanctuary, in all its beauty and strength will be dedicated to Julie Taylor Ogden, a woman of great beauty and strength, who played with the group before her life was dictated by pain and claimed by cancer.
Benjamin said that he’s really been impressed with Dr. Chris Foster, director of the band. “He built the band from a really small group into an ensemble that has gotten larger and better every semester.”
The Symphonic Band Concert invites you to an impressive one-hour collection of contemporary music written expressly for symphonic band. Selections include Samuel Hazo’s jubilant “Exultate,” Steven Bryant’s pensive “Bloom,” and Dana Wilson’s dry and rhythmic “Colorado Peaks.”
The concert will be in Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall, on Friday, April 23 at 8 p.m. It’s free, open to the public and a dignified start for Hot Dog Day weekend. Enter Harder Hall on the uphill side through the multiple glass doors. Turn right to Howell Hall auditorium.

Sarah Carmen presents Senior Thesis Show

A few years ago I thought I had a basic understanding of “art” but as a result of listening actively and looking deeply, of concentrating intently as various students described their work, I’ve realized that art is a small word holding an entire world of meanings.

Is art about what I see or about a practice of exploring materials and processes? Maybe it’s about discovering relationships and linking science with thought or past with present. Maybe it’s about making people slow down and put words to their responses as their eyes or even hands explore an object or idea.

Maybe, all I know is maybe so it’s time to work at that definition some more. It’s time for Alfred University’s 2010 Senior Thesis Shows. All seniors in Alfred University’s School of Art and Design create a thesis and present work to explore that thesis - a senior show. Every student will have a different thesis and will present their answers in different ways – using clay, paint, rocks, dirt, glass, paper, gesso, time, fur, wood, dance, sound, machines and whatever other material seems to suit the thesis. The shows will be held on Saturday, May 8. The opening reception is from 4-7 pm and you’re invited. Bring a friend and share rides. Parking is hard to find.

In preparation for the shows, I spoke with Sarah Carmen. Sarah’s major is Art and Design with a concentration in photography and a minor in Education. Sarah came to Alfred to study art and she always intended to include education in her program but she didn’t jump into photography until she signed up for classes for a semester overseas in Scotland last year.

She filled out paperwork choosing graphic design as her course work while in Scotland. As soon as she saw those words on the paper she realized that she wasn’t a bit interested in graphic design. She wanted to study photography. She changed the answer and has been snapping up antique cameras and photos on 2 continents. “Art has been heaven ever since,” according to Sarah.

Sarah’s camera of choice is a circa 1950 Ansco Flex medium format camera. It has 2 lenses, one for her to frame her image and the other to expose light to the film. She can’t get film for this camera so she buys black and white Kodak 120mm film and takes it off the spool to rewind it onto other spools that will actually fit inside the camera. The process of loading film takes her about 30 minutes.

Sarah has a friend, a psychology student, who understands Sarah’s language of photography. She knows how to stand and how to look to capture the aspect of the setting that Sarah wants in her photo. That’s an uncommon skill, she says.
Sarah’s project involves using her photos as well as photos she has found and copied and manipulating them by cutting them, changing the textures, blowing them up and changing them.

One of her projects in Scotland was to present a single photo 50 different ways. She really liked that project and doing it made her stretch her understanding of images. When she returned from Scotland she brought that challenge with her and has spent her senior year manipulating photos in even more ways. While working with photos this way she realized that the processes made her photos more like her memories of Scotland.

“The mind sheds memories,” said Sarah. “Our minds take in an image through our eyes but change that image to fill it in with textures and related experiences – current or from other time periods. Our minds work on those images, superimposing some parts and erasing others but we think those are the images we really saw.”

Sarah makes copies of her images and then puts them on heavy, gesso-coated paper and then washes off the paper to reveal grainy images on the large sheets. Photographic representation of mind-fuzzed memories. She also layers photos in light boxes putting several images on plastic or glass and piling them up in groupings that seem related to her.

The light boxes will be small and the washed images will be huge and they will all represent Sarah’s mind and memory and her sense of “heaven” in a space shared with Rayanna Bump’s stained-glass show in Harder Hall on the second floor painting area.

Starting Small, show at The Artist Knot

Boats by Molly Dougherty (photo provided)

Amy Brown meant to start small but her first show at the newly remodeled gallery, the Artist Knot in Andover, drew a huge crowd – enormous in enthusiasm and massively impressed.

Among the first guests to walk in were Rick and Sarah Recio from Wellsville. Rick said that several forces nudged them to attend the show. They read articles about the store/gallery in 2 area papers and then their neighbor brought a gift from the Artist Knot. Rick drove past it twice a day for a while – always too early or too late to stop – but the postcard about the show made them set the date for a visit.

Recios found three “favorites” on display in the show as well as in the main gallery: a Salvador Dali print, a painting of elephant tulips and a Dick Lang bowl. They sipped wine, visited friends, snacked on an engaging spread of food and in the end chose the Dali, an intricate design wonderfully framed and matted.

Ann and Rich Hampshire, present, were pleased that there is a place like the Artist Knot to show off all our local artists.

Anthony Lipnicki, proprietor of the Mustard Seed Inn, said, “This is a wonderful addition to the community of Andover. Andover is turning into “the place to be” and this opening gave me the chance to appreciate the talent in our area. It also made me realize the quality of art made by some of my friends.”

Another guest, Ty Houston from Hornell, spent a great deal of time studying Bob Chaffee’s wood carvings as well as an oil painting by Jay Pullman of Hornell. Pullman’s painting, Time for a Rest III showed a pile of logs, large diameter pieces on the bottom and smaller on the top, a blue jacket hanging on one log and a maul leaning against its future task.

Houston works for the Tribune in Hornell. Last week, her job required her to visit a sawmill so the topic in Pullman’s piece caught her eye, surprising her. While working, she had walked past stacks of wood, mundane things unworthy of note, but Pullman had looked at much the same scene and turned it into art. “He took a small part of life and made it bigger. He saw something I would never have seen,” she said as she continued to study the patterns in the wood.

“The title is Time for a Rest III and that makes me want to know the story. Was the jacket still on the person in number one? Was there a number 4? Was it the painter’s jacket?”

Houston left those questions hanging but later Pullman arrived with answers. Before painting this series, he had been living in the south but hurricane Katrina destroyed his home so he moved to the “family homestead” in Hartsville. There he faced that pile of wood, wore that jacket and wielded that maul to turn chunks of tree into winter heat. His wood piles were neatly stacked with an artist’s eye toward pattern - and the pattern came to this series of paintings. The larger logs at the bottom of the stack were those that refused to yield to his maul.

The Artist Knot is filled with the work of 48 artist and artisans but Starting Small has small works created by 12 of them. The show includes drawings by Jerry Brown, paintings by Tom O’Grady and o’bhriuthiann, wood carvings by Alec MacCrea, silver jewelry by Trina Allen and pottery by Mark Corwine. Molly Dougherty, of Richburg, was not only the youngest artist but the most popular among patrons Starting Small opened on Friday, March 12, 2010 and continues on Tuesdays through Saturdays until April 23 during regular hours. In addition to art, the Artist Knot also sells professional art supplies and materials. Visit www.ArtistKnot.com for hours.




Bob Chaffee's Lonesome Indian (photo provided)



Trina Allen's Free Falling Leaves necklace (photo provided)


Dick Lang's Brown Covered Jar (photo provided)

The CornerStone of Alfred

What if you had to describe the totality of Alfred? How would you do it? How would you present the story of a traffic light celebration or a place where an art show might spend a glorious hour in a public restroom or on a Main Street bench?

How would you introduce or symbolize the people who give Alfred life as an experience and not just an address? How would tuck Alfred, the entity, into a play and send it off to a stage where at least one person in the audience would emit that comforting sigh, slow and steady, that we stream through our bodies after a long or difficult journey?

Those questions and tasks were the topics tackled and mused during a weekend workshop with Cornerstone Theater Company. Cornerstone is a multi-ethnic, ensemble-based theater company that works with communities to help them create new plays or adapt classic plays in order to tell a story in a way that can create, define, strengthen or expand a community. That’s a simple description. Find more if you’d like at CornerstoneTheater.org.

In a list of things that I am not one would surely find “actor” so when Becky Prophet invited me to attend an acting workshop my first response was to look for a hiding place but Becky is a force of nature and her enthusiasm led created interest and curiosity so I braved the snow (and the threat of acting) and came to Alfred to be part of the process.

The workshop was presented by Paula Donnelly and Laurie Woolery from Cornerstone. Donnelly and Woolery both sport a huge list of theatrical involvements listing several theatrical groups, residencies and shows. They came to Alfred to develop their own image of the community through experience with residents and to demonstrate the exercises that Cornerstone employs.

During some early exercises we learned that the 26 participants were life-long residents of Alfred, people who chose to move to Alfred, people who were new to the area and people who expected a short-term (perhaps 4 year) relationship with the town. The group was made up of people with all manner of learning styles and found they could make sub groups with several commonalities such as favorite foods, having performed in groups or thinking that puppies are adorable. These were cultural mapping activities that required interaction and cooperation.

Cornerstone has guidelines for dialogue and we went over some of the elements in establishing a productive dialogue. There was discussion about the elements that define a community and the some of the ways of engaging with a community as well as guidelines for successful community meetings – all of which Donnelly and Woolery followed to make participants feel welcome and to keep everyone engaged.

During an exercise called wagon wheel, rotating pairs answered questions about their lives and their experiences in prejudice and assumptions. The focus moved from participants to the community as ideas built. In another exercise small groups talked about the specific characters that make Alfred come alive. Some of the “people” listed were art students, engineering students, and the town cops. Specific names included John Ninos, John Cunningham and Becky Prophet.

In describing Alfred through the senses people spoke of Nana’s, the Terra Cotta and Kinfolk when considering taste. For sight and smells they spoke of the hills and natural areas. The sound of peacefulness and the bells were commonly mentioned.
There were many small town stories shared from the memories of eating a can of pork and beans while walking down Main Street in the 1950s to the experience of arriving in Alfred just a few months ago and feeling welcomed from the first minute.

On the second day of the workshop a lot of these memories, impressions and details worked into short skits to try to explain the concept of Alfred. Whether or not this process continues and grows into something more the workshop was an interesting process in building a sense of community and learning to establish groups that work well together.

Buenos Aries

At the time of this piece we have been in Buenos Aries 4 of our 5 days. We’ve accepted that nobody with sense wears gold here and left our necklaces and my ring in the hotel. I’ve seen some tourists wear gold but not many of them – 2 young guys with fine gold chains and iPods and one older woman with a marvelous antique gold chain.

It’s all about security here. Men wear belly pouches under their arms and around their necks. Women clutch bags at their stomachs and backpacks are worn at the front almost 100% of the time on adults.

We have noticed a strong café culture with plenty of cafes to choose from. People sit and sip tea, coffee, latte, cappuccino and vino for hours in the day. We went to Café Tortoni, standing in line to get permission from the doorman to enter. Inside this National Heritage site the waiters are in black suits with white shirts and the proverbial towel over the arm. There are 2 rooms set up for historical preservation areas with Café’ Tortoni memorabilia and in one corner of the working area there are 3 mannequins of historical characters who once ate and talked there.

Upstairs is the National Tango academy where there are shows and lessons offered. In the café I ate a salad of tomatoes, peaches, a boiled egg and pickled palm hearts served with Balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It was great but I couldn’t finish the huge bowl of food. Rick had some marvelous hot chocolate (not thick like in Spain but milky like in the US but richer.) served with 3 sugar dusted churros.

We visited a Burger King built inside of a 18th century mansion where the pillars and ornate ceilings and doorways were preserved. We visited a bookstore built into a theater where the stage was used for the café and the balconies were lined with books and CDs and DVDs. It is ranked as the second most wonderful book store in the world and I can’t imagine what could outrank it.

We went to stand at the golden doors of city hall at 4 pm on Saturday and when the doors opened 2 guards marched out to stay at the entry for the hour that city hall is open for visitors. The city hall was expanded when the city acquired the neighboring newspaper building whose lobby was carved from oak and whose ballroom has 2 stages and is as ornate as anything in Peter Hoff in St. Petersburg. Rick and I were the only English speakers so we had a private tour.

In our visits up and down streets and in and out of subways we often see men with babies or little children. When the family is together the man pushes the stroller unless there are a few children and he has to carry one or two.

The Harrods closed 20 years ago and that building remains totally empty and dark but without the graffiti that afflicts the banks that are known to do businesses with genocidal governments.

The splendor of so many buildings is eye popping. It isn’t quite Prague or Budapest but it isn’t as old as either of those cities either. It is said to be the Paris of South America and deserves any name that recognizes its glorious architecture. We would like it just a bit more if the heat didn’t melt our bones and make us rubbery legged in the streets.

South American Hotels

We stayed at 3 hotels on this trip. In Santiago it was Hotel Orly, a tiny hotel tucked into the center of town where there was tea, coffee, water, fruit and cookies all day long in a charming café on the main floor. We arrived too early for our room but we were offered breakfast and the chance to sit and rest in the lobby or common area before we went out into the Chilean heat. Overall it was a super hotel and I would recommend it to anyone.

In Valparaiso we stayed at Hostel Morgan, a small home maintained by a woman and her daughter. They gave us a find breakfast, good sightseeing advice. I would stay there anytime and happily since Valparaiso was wonderful to walk around. The public art was everywhere to find - like searching for Easter Eggs in the grass.

Third –and another winner- was Lola House in Buenos Aries. This is run by 2 sisters who hired their brother-in-law to do the renovations to turn an 1850s family home into a Spanish style house with a courtyard and wonderful tiles. The name is in honor of their brother-in-law’s mother, Dorothy. She was Spanish( Lola is the Spanish diminutive of Dorothy.) and so that dictated the style of the home with stained glass in the ceiling and over the doorway as well as intricate tile installations glazed to show Lola’s favorite paintings and designs.

Anna and Irena couldn’t be more gracious and welcoming hostesses. Breakfast is generous; internet is free and the air conditioners make the rooms more than comfortable. Someone is on hand to let guests in around the clock and the dogs guard the patio in the night.