I slept till noon again. I’m going to have to talk to my psychiatrist about this next visit. Now I am doing something I never do, watching TV while I write., That’s stupid. I can watch TV tomorrow. I’m turning it off so I can concentrate. Switching to instrumental music.
Yesterday’s highlight was seeing a photography show featuring, among others, BriBri Dougherty. Normally I use just their first name but this is a professional reference so I use both. My Gentle Readers know Bri as my great friend and Budgiedome partner in musician wrangling, Paul calls her the Gordon wrangler. There are not many people that I’d travel to Newark from therapy in Harrison for. Bri is well worth three hours.
I often push Bri as a commercial photographer, if you are a musician and need photos they are the person to go to, just ask Carolann Solebello, Bri shot her album and publicity photos. But that is just to support their passion, art photography. That’s what was on display at the show.
It took me years to learn to write about music, something I know a great deal about, how do I write about photographic art which I don’t? I say what I feel, what I observed, and steal from Carolann, she was at the show too. If you could explain a photograph in words you wouldn’t have to take the photograph, so I won’t go there. Instead I’ll be put things in terms I know. Photography n: From Greek φωτός (phōtos), genitive of φῶς (phōs), “light” and γραφή (graphé) “representation by means of lines” or “drawing”, together meaning “drawing with light”. Bri’s work go back to the etymology, not so much pictures of things but art whose medium is light. You don’t say, “That’s a photo of tunnel but “That could be the Time Vortex” from Doctor Who. I did say that. Carolann described them as “painterly.” Not abstract but not quite representational. The medium is light but the mood dark. None of the works from the show are on the website but this older photo comes closest to the feel of the photos in the show.
There has been artistic growth since then but you can recognize the same artist behind it, one I’m proud to call my friend.
Getting there was something of a challenge, a bus, to the MetroNorth to the Times Square Shuttle to the 2 Train to New York Penn Station to NJ Transit train to Newark Penn Station to walking. I could have added NJ Transit light rail but I didn’t know how that worked, something on the App said it required exact change. It didn’t say you could use a credit card, and it would have only saved me a few minutes.
After the three-hour trip I had to use the bathroom and that was an adventure in itself. Up the stairs to the second floor in the back of the building, and then to the exhibit in the front. I was told there was a bathroom in one of the offices on the floor, at the back of the building. Walked to that and found it locked. Back to the front to try again. I was told to go to the Whole Foods on the first floor; walked to the stairs at the back of the building, and then to Whole foods at the front. I asked where the bathroom was. It was in the very far corner, the back of the building. I get there to find that it needs a pass code. I asked at an appetizer and was told I had to go to customer service, of course at the front of the building. Walked there then back to the bathroom. It ended up taking 20 minutes.
When I walked into the Gallery I soon found Bri and Carolann and everything was worth it. They were looking at one of Bri’s works, it struck me as something from a Russian Fairy Tale. My frames of reference are a bit out of the norm. Then I had a tour of the rest of their works and we moved on to the other artists. I had never been to a contemporary photography show until I saw Bev Grant’s in September. Now I’ve been to two this year, both with Carolann.
Earlier in the day I had therapy. I didn’t have last week because of NERFA. I am not going to have it the next two weeks, next week I’ll be MA for Thanksgiving and the week after that is my therapist’s birthday and she’s seeing a Broadway show. I thought that means if I kill anyone I can get off but Bri told me it doesn’t work that way. I’ll have to be good.
Today I’m going back to New Jersey for the Hudson West Folk Festival volunteer party. I’m going to NJ two days in a row; that’s the stuff that heroes are made of.
Wise Madness 