more wishes, more pennies...

after the Rivane Neuenschwander show at the New Museum
with it's ribbon wishes (see previous post)
now the Modern
(aka MoMA but always The Modern to me)
gets into the act.
The garden is home to Yoko Ono's wish tree,
part of the Contemporary Art from the Collection



elsewhere in the garden
a more traditional way of wishing
yields to the impulse
to order/create

it's too darn hot

but enough about the weather.
it was too interesting a day
to be bothered by
100% humidity and 90 degrees.



at the bus stop
at the corner of houston and
sixth avenue this morning:
a pile of pennies.
seven of them.
i rearranged them thus:



wondering whether i was being observed.
wondering whether this was someone's
project: sociological? artistic?

the bus rounded the corner and without
further debate i took the pennies.

was this wrong?

later i walked into a gallery
to see a fairfield porter show
i hadn't intended to see today.
the only other person
in the gallery
was a friend of a friend.
today is the birthday of our mutual friend.

i never know what to do with synchronicity.

i went to a couple of galleries
showing work by richard diebenkorn...moving, inspiring...
one at greenberg van doren
and another at leslie feely

it's been an art week.
museums and galleries are air conditioned...

yesterday i visited the new museum
on the bowery
for the first time
to see
rivane neuenschwander: a day like any other.



the lobby installation, i wish your wish,
is a room of wishes printed on colored ribbons -
a kind of linear maypole.
tie a ribbon to your wrist
and when it falls off
your wish is meant to come true.

you can participate online here.

the lighting in the museum
gave me a headache.
i think "green"
(i.e. environmentally friendly)
lighting gives me a headache.

the bowery isn't, anymore,
what it was. think
gentrification and whole foods.

though there are still restaurant supply
warehouses that display characters
of various types
for reasons that defy reason...

desperately seeking

another word for
retired.

i'm neither tired again nor
are my wheels being replaced.

when asked "what do you do"
the answer "i'm retired" sounds to me
exactly like "i don't do anything"

i'm leaning towards
"whatever i want".

speaking of which...

i was off at snow farm in massachusetts
for two lovely weeks.

oh the textures...









it's summer camp
for grownups (well...'grownups')
without all that pesky
sports stuff.
just the arts and crafts.



i took one workshop in PMC - precious metal clay -
in this case silver metal clay. great teacher -
terry kovalcik
- and fascinating - though expensive - medium.


one of my first artifacts.

the second week was glass beads with cynthia saari
whose work is exquisite.
terrific class. (photos to come)

the sun did come out

and there was a bear. a large black bear.

and yet...

wet is not without charm...









that last is just to remind myself about shadows...

rainy sunday, massachusetts

a self described 'group of old men'
playing guitar, bass and mandolin,
rainy afternoon, new england.

songs i know but don't know how...
summer camp?
red river valley and
the wabash cannonball.
folsom prison blues,
old dogs and children and
watermelon wine.



their patter is a conversation
that's been going on for years.
their voices, maybe a little flat,
make up for it in the obvious joy
they take in making music.



nostalgia at the blue house
isn't limited to the music...
the bulletin board brings me back to
euhene oregon, ca. 1972...



and the top row of the bookshelf
seems to have been transported from
the same decade...



music sunday afternoons 2-4 if you're in the neighborhood.

the woods ar lovely, dark and deep

and damp. very damp.
ahhh summer in new england...

wactching grass grow

i've been slowing down
and studying the sky.
or,
in the vernacular,
watching grass grow.





seeing things i'd missed





a most satisfying pursuit

city and swamp

both taken yesterday.

leisure

everything moves
more slowly.

me too.

could be the heat.
could be the novelty of
not having to be anywhere.



i'm taking careful notes about everything i do
these first few weeks of retirement. or "retirement"?
i was always curious about how people not at work
passed the time. i am beginning to get it.


picasso


giacometti


MoMA

my apartment is terribly hot.

i've sought out other people's air conditioning.
newly discovered branches
of the new york public library
offer cool and quiet.

i've sat in the museum garden until
the guards shooed us out.

i've read three chapters (so far) of
dominique browning's book about
losing her job and finding herself
in the quiet of barnes and noble.

no. she didn't find herself in the
quiet of barnes and noble.
i found her book there...

i read the times each morning
with (ice) coffee.
at a relaxing pace.

leisure.