Rochester Red Wings

Frontier Field is really nice--though my preference is the Sky Chief's field in Syracuse as it it lower and more park like. However, the Rochester field boasts the integration of some buildings that have always been part of the downtown landscape and other ball-parky structures as part of the baseball complex--like picnic pavillions (a la the State Parks around here) and some umbrella-ed areas where companies can provide picnics for their employees in a very tasteful and low key way. Rochester also has lovely, grassy berms on either side of the field that people can plop down on and sit in the grass versus the seats.

Every seat was sold for the game we attended on Saturday. Chock a block people (when the ticket prices are $6, $8.50 or $10. and you know what movies cost...this is a deal, a chance to sit outside and scream). Every person was handed a pair of black, blow-up thundersticks (you get the idea)--so everyone was banging these balloons, eating up a storm and yelling their heads off during a classic upstate stand-off between the Buffalo Bisons and The Rochester Redwings. The local community church choir sang the opener. We had handicapped kids playing ball. We had young dads throwing tennis balls into a net to win lottery tickets. We had the Rochester Redwings boy and girl mascots hopping around with kids or riding in the backs of shiny pick up trucks. And then we had the presentations by the blow-up mascots, the Zooperstars

The Zooperstars are these enormous, blow-up mascots in the tradition of the huge Santie Clauses or the bloated Frosties people keep on their front lawns around the holidays but they are shiny fabric and someone is inside. They bounce when they move, and often they do little innocuous things like dance. However, they all reference sports in some way ie Cow Ripkin, Tiger Woodchuck, and Roger Clamson. Roger is the most frightening as it is a clam on the body of a person. The clam has a long, gross tongue which picks up baseballs and hurls them at an "unsuspecting" person. The high jinx go on to have the Clam eat the ball player and then after a little time, reguritate this person out sans clothes. I guess it was funny, but I was rather disturbed by this...I cannot figure it out, but I was. The head above is of a character called Harry Canary who did all the dancing etc and then shot silly string out of one of his button holes.

I did a little research on these things--and it seems that Walk Around does the making and designing of these things...Man. They could use some illustration help--designing better looking creatures. Check out their gallery>>
 Or their rentals>> Or the video of the Pepsi Logo as a Walk Around>>

This should get us going during a short week. Think of the possibilies!

Boy Wonder

We all miss K. We dropped her off at her school which was wonderful and to us, seemed filled with potential. We propped her room and threatened the R and our friend M would show up with miles of gauze, staple guns and ribbon to do the room up the way it needed to be done .K was very interested. Lots of diversity of the kids. Counsellors seemed nice and interesting. Lots of greenery and a stones throw to a sandy beach on Lake Ontario (Hamlin Beach) which we visited and throughly enjoyed albeit comparing it closely to the divine Taughannock. She is going to have art history, faculty lectures, a dress ball, trips to museums and galleries, discussions on portfolios and homework. It will be a growing experience for her. I hope it is promising and fun. More as we go>>

We have been feeling like our hearts are emptier and she is missing. We call her...and bore her with our curiosities of friends, food and doings. Things will unfold as we go.

Boy Wonder inquires regularly to K about the hotness of the chicks. Isn't it nice to be 13? Boy Wonder, above, caught after a pose he struck to be fabulous for us. Not.
This is him.

A cloud filled day



This wonderful boat came down the lake early this morning. R said "Hey! It's Horatio (Hornblower)!" and though it wasnt as big as a boat Nelson might use, it was quite impressive for our little lake. The clouds were picture perfect--and I shot and shot pictures from on foot to in the passenger seat in the Wonderbus.

New cellphones for the littles and me. We shopped and switched from Vera Zone to AT and T as well. Cool new phones with AT&T with the oppt'y to scale up to an iphone when the desire and price meet. It was impressive to watch all of us with iphones on the brain for now or even later pour into the AT&T store--all with the same pleas on our lips, the same complaints of Verizon's crap service and unresponsiveness....welcoming even a slight shift in product and servicee from the "please wait for a half an hour before one of our highly qualified service deliverers can deliver their quality service" insult. Hope for the future.

Grassroots programs are printed and at Gimme! for the planning and scheduling in the near future of four musical days. The Rongo features "pregame" music the night before and our Pourhouse is revving up with the Chokers doing a set or two before the opening. So, for those of us in the 'Burg, Grassroots starts at least a day early. Pencil them in!

More later>>

More rain


Buckets yesterday. More promised today. Four new monarda plants added to the collection--all new plants going gangbusters. Need to get K. figured out today--getting cash card approved, getting toiletries and detergent for her clothes. Wrapping up some comps for our clients. Got a nibble from the ISpot yesterday with a deadline that I cannot deliver on. Exciting there is some interest.

I am cited today on Illosaurus>>

Traded pdfs with a classmate of our thesis. His work is amazing and the story he tells in the thesis, heartening and rich. He also sprinkled his references and development work throughout the paper to enliven the story and make it easier to read versus flipping back and forth. I am in process of picking up that same approach for my paper. Additionally, need to get the "Works Cited" page for the addendum. The end is in sight.

Had a nice email chat with Carol from HAS (Hartford Art School) with the ISDP MFA program. She sent me links to the folks in the program--some very accomplished and interesting work. I need to start revving up about this program. It's going to be fun. I hope the wine job will yield some money to pay for this program this year. That would be great.

More later>>

Sheldrake Clean-up

All gone. All the wood. All the leaves, all the branches. Clean as a whistle. I pitied the scheduled weddings last weekend as the place looked trashed. Now, neat and tidy. Mr. Hair came and did a lovely job...stacking the oak ( from the thrice struck oak known by the locals and Luckystoners as the "dangerous oak) logs which were interesting curly like typographic curlie Qs. After the hedge trimming and the bit of weeding, we are looking a little less like a bomb hit. Henry, the Amish roofer will be giving us a new roof at the Lodge as we have roof tiles flying across the yard with some of them worn to it's core. Thankfully this is something we can do now...before the rain and snow. Might happen this week.

Rochester Red Wings have a game this Saturday. I think we are on for that.

Shady Grove discovered little frogs yesterday. Even better than squirrels.

Syracuse still hasn't gotten us (any of us) our thesis papers to amend and send back. The dude that needs us to send us buckets of stuff ( paperwork, approvals, files etc) just happily came back from vacation (our deadline is July 1) with answers to a mass of questions from his stack of requirements we need to provide. He says they need all of our images at 300 dpi to size. This sounds extremely fishy. Do they have the right to use our images in University publications without our knowledge? I do not recall approving any document allowing Syracuse full usage rights to our images. I am beginning to see red about this and may, via email, crank it up publicly with my classmates to point up what this possibly means. I know they don't see this freight train coming down the tracks. To be honest, I don't have a problem with SU using our images...what I have a problem with is the covert and stupid way this is handled with no explanation or qualifications of how they would use them. Should I watermark all the files to cover myself? Urg. This shouldnt be such a pain--and it is, due to no one minding the store.

More later.

Philip Burke

I was stunned and inspired by a recent New Yorker image created by Philip Burke of Princess Diana. It was startlingly beautiful with rich, hot pinks, cool greens and the bigger head/smaller body thing that happens in caricatures. Burke confidently lays in slabs of color lusciously, staying big and bold yet portraying Diana with heart--showing her as a tentative, intelligent women...imbuing her with spirit. I found the Tommy Franks for your edification (above). Ray Charles (below) to continue. There is a mention of Burke in Wikipedia...and I found a gallery in Ohio that sells his giclees. Many of the magazines he has illustrated for cite him (New York Times, Harpers, Rolling Stone). I also love the black and white he did of Charleton Heston ...(see below). His brush work is calligraphic and energetic. Inspired.

Nice write up about the Ape, Darren Di Lieto, the Little Chimp Society founder and to me, a thought leader in the world off internet communities for illustrators. An excerpt speaks to his point of view:

The internet has given public access to a lot of rubbish ... ‘cough MySpace cough’ ... but at the same time I think it has given birth to a global community of like-minded image-making individuals. Being able to access the work of so many great illustrators at the same time has raised the bar as far as quality and competitive drawing goes. The problems start to show when you think about how big the internet is and how much choice there is. How can a freelancer compete with the rest of the world when someone on the other side of it is happy to work for half the fee and (allegedly) deliver the same goods…?

Right on. Check out the whole thing (http://www.illosaurus.com/vs-lcs.php)

summer emerges


Longest day, four days ago. Big work day of weeds and hedgecutting, helping friends, cooking and tidying. This striped rose peeked out--to declare the imminent summer (projections of ninties this week). Mr. Hair coming to clean up the trees and all their destruction--is our hope. He said Monday...so....

Been planning to take out some of the inked sketches I have done in the last few months and work them up in illustrator. There should be a good 6 of them to start with. Additionally, want to do some research on Hindu mythology to develop some sketches/body of work around them. Could be interesting. I spent some time with Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales to think about the possible children's book project for next summer...and feel its pretty much in free fall. Thank goodness I have a year to sweat it--maybe mythology might point to something.

Gotta go to get the babies up.

A perfect day to graduate


Congratulations to the Class of 2007, Trumansburg High School. It's a perfect, cornflower blue sky day for the Blue Raiders to graduate and move forward in their lives. It is a perfect day for the after graduation lunches and parties. It is a perfect day to remember.

K and I socked in a mess of plants with K doing more laughing and tumbling with the dog than planting. She was silly, funny company. We strolled the newly refurbished Main Street around 9 a.m. to find it buzzing between the sweet shop and Gimme! with people sitting outside, milling and gathering. We caught up with John about the little Village that is underconstruction with all sorts of happy news and positive, truly achieveable goals. It was a blue sky chat as it was all possible which often, here on our plateau, we lose scope and try to raise millions of dollars for activities and facilities that would be nice, but out of reach for a community of 2000 and with the folks in the environs taking it up to 8,000. Multi million dollar projects spread out among 8,000 still demands everyone give, and give big. These achievable, left foot/right foot projects reinforce that things can be really nice, just scaled for the communitity and those that support the project. We will have a little space for children with these large play houses made by people in the community that represent different aspects of the town. There is a lovely stone wall and plans for seating, a little garden and maybe a sand box. The owners of the laundromat has allowed the village to place this little garden parklet on their property--so moms can do their laundry, get a coffee and enjoy playtime with their littles (or not so littles). All good. All happy. All right with the world.

Off to buy art supplies with K. R. looked at a current illustration I did of a dog and suggested very good and affirming changes (I had tentatively thought about) so change will happen soon.

Must go>>

Battlefield


The biggest tree in the picture is down in Sheldrake as is the ancient oak(which was threatening for a while). Trees uprooted as if a leviathan simply plucked out these old trees by the roots and threw them aside. There are branches, leaves and arbordetrius everywhere.Our friends in Sheldrake weathered the storm in their basements. It truly is amazing that our windows were left intact. More later.

Tornado!

Looking for more rain


Rained like it was Miami on Tuesday. Lowered the heat and humidity for the last two days so it is really beautiful and the grass is greening up a shade from the edgy brown that it promised to evolve to. The monarda I put in is flourishing--and the deer pests are not interested. Promising.

Plans afoot to try something new. I have a bunch of holiday illustrations (many of them rejects from client's wishes and desires)--and think that I should call up the ispot and get them up in the next week. Afterall, it is holiday time for those in retail etc. Christmas has to be done and printed by the end of August to roll into fall with all of that behind them so the addressing and stamping can be done in a timely (not a screaming rush) manner. I'll post a link when it all happens.

Gotta get a bunch of supplies and stuff for K's attending NYSSSA's visual art program. Also am curious about the edited thesis. I would love to have it in my hands before July 1. I think I better start pushing on when when when.

R back from the world travels with a memory stick filled with evocative images of simple, perfect, antique dressed stone walls, simple monastic environments as perfect environments for design work, indoor/outdoor spaces; and tales of elegant parties, interesting people, cheese shops, good design and "art" ("strings with a stone attached for three million dollars"). He is in good shape and is filled with ideas and talk. Should be fun getting more of the data dump we will get over the course of the next month or so.

Pug part of a new illo on the board.

Today

New cushions on the terrace. Picked them up from Barry at Finger Lakes Service. He had a totally beautiful, refurbished wooden Chris Craft boat (The Rocket) that he personally put over 2,000 hours into. The green and white, huge stripes look great on the terrace. Sunbrella with zippers so they are washable, fade free and have a life beyond a year or so. And, Barry stressed on the stripes and all they could do. He also worried about draining and put brass grommets in the back for drainage or if we want, to create ties to tie the cushions in place. That Barry, good brain...that he uses with every job he works on. yay. done.

Someone/thing got into the trash. Urg.

Huge rainstorm in the middle of the afteroon. Promises of some more which we love the idea of. Pretty nasty humidity. A. claims its 99% Humidity--comparing it to Miami. K adores it. I find it encouraging that this the stuff. I am with A. on the heat and humidity. I used to hate the hot end of school. We have two more half days and school is out at the MS. The HS is done. Reconfigured the chiuaua to make it bolder and simpler. Planning on another dog or two. The scarier the image the more uncomfortable folks get with the cute idea of dogs. Everyone likes this dog...but as an aside, to a man, they claim that no one will want this to grace the space over the mantlepiece. I like this dog as it reflects the scary clown heads that the local circus companies used to post in multiple panels (today, we would refer to this type of poster as "tiled output".

The MOB (Mary Ott Band) was wonderful at the Pourhouse complete with Marcus singing and drumming. Rickie was there with his pocket trumpet. Mary stopped by to tell us about her new foal she is training to put her own bridle on. We loved her story of the process to get her to do this. Mary is glowing. We are delighted for her. Musical Royalty was at the Pourhouse--sleepers amongst all of us who are regulars.

I hear the rumbles of more storms. R. is coming home tomorrow. It will be wonderful.

University of Hartford: ISDP MFA Illustration: New website

Hartford Art School (HAS) presents a new site for their new MFA ISDP Illustration program:

"The program was conceived and is directed by internationally renowned illustrator, educator and illustration historian, Murray Tinkelman. Murray has over 40 years of teaching experience including over 30 years experience in organizing and leading successful Limited Residency graduate programs. Murray was awarded the prestigious Distinguished Educator in the Arts award in 1999 by the Society of Illustrators.

According to Murray Tinkelman, Director, "Mid-career education is becoming increasingly important. It is inspiring to see successful, established illustrators who are willing to be critiqued and to learn from each other.""

Hartford Limited Residency MFA>>

It's a great site. They show faculty resumes, faculty portfolios, student portfolios along with all the nuts and bolts needed to apply for the program. Well worth taking a look a at the future for limited residency illustration programs. This is all that SU has missed by a mile. Its all grown up and very real and serious.

Get Psyched.

Obey the Purebreed.com



Obey the Purebreedis a Shepard Fairey knock-off if ever I saw one. I first thought had was that this was pure Fairey, but the Fairey clues were not there...ie. good typography, lots of texture and pattern, his singular palette (turquoise and magenta are not in the mix) and the reference to the A/star shape with Andre the Giant's simplified head adorning the shape are not part of this designer's reference. He is using the Obey brand...very conspiciously--but his goofy humor doesnt match up with Fairey's wit and consciousness. Plus, Shepard Fairey did not go to Rudgers. He went to RISD. I wonder if S.Fairey knows about this knock-off guy. It hurts his image with the confusion.

Thoughts anyone?

First Two Innings: 18-0




We won. 18-9/ And we didnt complete the job.We got through all but 2 of the innings. All the points happened in the magical first 2 innings. Truly field of dreams. Our guys were true, good sportsmen and nailing it unlike last Friday with the same team. 'Bout time. Today was the last full day of middle school. K actually studied for the regents--she was remarkable in her focus and ability with the regents studies today.

Please notice sharp new Tburg tops.>>

Sunday and today


AliBob was 9-6 going flat out with his pal, Marcus. Boating, swimming, mowing lawns etc. So much so, while waiting for dinner to happen with his grandparents, he stretched out on a chair and totally conked. Unshakeable sleeping.

Kitty spent time on her room, sorting her clothes, putting some in the wash etc. We took a break to have lunch out as a treat to find that the Falls was closed at one on Sunday, so we went to the Paradise Cafe on 96. They were closed too. So, off to Wegmans. You know the lunch drill there...Nice. easy. On the way home, we had another, "why not" moment and stopped at Early Bird Farms for deer resistant plants. It was fun looking at plants and grasses with Kitty and her new interest thanks to Rose at the Gothic Eves. They had a nice selection and we had an informative conversation with a lady who worked there about those pesky deer. Rule of thumb, she related, was to stick with things that have a smell or taste and or "blue" plants. Artemesia, veronica, nasturtium and more. New deer strategy brewing here. Give up. Plant deer resistant plants and make lemonade with these lemons. Why shouldnt we have a nice series of plantings grouped together that is nasty to these pests? Instead of fantasizing about plantings with flora that I love....love the plants that will work. Another idea is to do plantings with "weeds", cultivated "weeds" that deer won't touch.

We saw a huge hawk on the way home. We pulled off the road to watch 2 big turkeys and their 5 babies cross the road. Turkeys are really primordial.

We had a nice dinner with the senior members of the tribe. We celebrated fathers day with our grandfather--and encouraged stories about our great grandfathers.

Today, we get work to our clients. We are having lunch with our dog client...which should be tons of fun. We have a ballgame tonight--an away game I need more specifics insofar as where and what time. K. needs to push against the Science regents test...and study a bit. I worry she is too relaxed. She hashorseback riding this evening...which may create a little push/pull with the baseball driving etc. I will figure it out.

No rain as promised yesterday. Projections for tomorrow. The grass is sharp and brown.

image is a cropped part of a dog I am working on (a sneering chiuaua).