the painting life
Everything Is Illuminated, oil on linen, 18″ x 20″
From Hushed Reverberations, my two-person exhibition with Karl Heerdt at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, NY, from March 17 through April 21. Reception from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 24.
Nightfall Study, Karl Heerdt, oil on linen panel
When I called Karl Heerdt last week he’d been out in his garage working on some sheet metal for the ’65 Mustang fastback he’s been restoring. I had no idea he did this, and to hear him talk about it filled me with instant envy. He loves simply getting under a hood and replacing pistons and rocker arms and carburetors. Yet he also doesn’t mind reselling what amounts to a completely new classic American car he’s put together with a little help from his friends. He did this recently with a Shelby Cobra replica, which is about to make its way back into his garage for a few more tweaks before his buyer takes delivery.
“Oh you bastard,” I said, but I’m not sure he heard me, because he was laughing at the fact that he was glad to come inside to answer the phone and get warm again. An upstate New York March can be as cruel as April, both here in Pittsford and down the turnpike in Tonawanda as well. “I’d love to have the tools to tear down an old 70s car and rebuild it. You’re living my dream.”
“It doesn’t take all that many special tools,” he said. “We got sheet metal replaced, hood and doors and things. It’s way more work than I expected. We completely tore it apart and did a complete rebuild on the engine and transmission and drive train. So everything is new. We updated the suspension, and we lowered it.”
You can get a glimpse of the car on his Instagram feed, still a dull matte gray from the primer coat. It’s one of the earliest Mustangs, a few years before the rumbling Highland Green menace Steve McQueen made famous in Bullitt. It takes us a while to get around to talking about his painting, because I go off on a tangent about how Dave Hickey wrote an essay in which he extolled car customization as a form of three-dimensional art. I couldn’t agree more, partly on philosophical grounds but also because it would give me an excuse to spend a year in my own garage learning how to take a small block V-8 apart and put it back together in a way that wouldn’t turn it into a massive paper weight.
Heerdt is my co-exhibitor at Oxford Gallery right now, in a show entitled Hushed Reverberations (Jim Hall borrowed it from a Santayana quote), MORE
Eros, oil on linen, 12 x 16
From Hushed Reverberations, my two-person exhibition with Karl Heerdt at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, NY, from March 17 through April 21. Reception from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 24.
(Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)
Kristen Bell, recently deceased: So, who was right?
Ted Danson, afterlife engineer: Right?
About the afterlife?
Oh well, Hindus. They were about 5 percent right. Jews, Christians, Buddhists, all were about 5 percent right. Everybody was about 5 percent right, except for Doug Forcett.
Who’s Doug Forcett?
Doug was a stoner kid who lived in Calgary in the 1970s. One night he got really high on mushrooms and his best friend Randy said hey what do you think happens when you die and Doug launched into this long monologue where he got right 92 percent correct. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. That’s him up there matter of fact. He’s pretty famous around here.
<He has his goofy portrait on the wall.>
Generally speaking there’s a good place and a bad place. You’re in the good place. You’re OK Eleanor.
Who’s in the bad place?
Every U.S. president ever except Lincoln. Mozart, Picasso, Elvis, basically every artist ever.
Begonias and Dahlias, oil on linen, 26″ x 52″
From Hushed Reverberations, my two-person exhibition with Karl Heerdt at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, NY, from March 17 through April 21. Reception from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 24.
Breakfast with Golden Raspberries, oil on linen, 30″ x 46″
From Hushed Reverberations, my two-person exhibition with Karl Heerdt at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, NY, from March 17 through April 21. Reception from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 24.
Bowl with Stovetop, oil on linen, 12″ x 18″
From Hushed Reverberations, my two-person exhibition with Karl Heerdt at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, NY, from March 17 through April 21. Reception from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 24.
Blues, Browns, and Gray, oil on linen, 10″ x 16″
From Hushed Reverberations, my two-person exhibition with Karl Heerdt at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, NY, from March 17 through April 21. Reception from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 24.
Begonias and Dahlias, 26” x 52”, oil on linen.
From Hushed Reverberations, my two-person exhibition with Karl Heerdt at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, NY, from March 17 through April 21. Reception from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 24.
Belle and Blue Bottle, oil on panel, 18″ x 18″
From Hushed Reverberations, my two-person exhibition with Karl Heerdt at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, NY, from March 17 through April 21. Reception from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 24.