Your Best Friend

I recently paid a business visit to Pulse Plastics in the Bronx. The dismal look of their windowless building along with that of Streamline Plastics prompted me to do a story on April 16, 2010, We Don't Do Windows, after my first visit there. So I was particularly stunned upon my recent arrival to see that one entire wall of the one-story building had been completely transformed by "graffiti."

I say "graffiti" because this type of painting, historically very controversial, has been going through a transition. I have written several stories on the phenomenon. From Unconditional Love on October 8, 2010:

Most see the problem as vandalism, pure and simple… What complicates the matter, however, is that like anything else, there is a spectrum of quality - some of the work is extraordinary. Some of the buildings are in industrial neighborhoods, have stood unoccupied for decades, and are dreadful looking - drab architecture, no exterior maintenance and a dismal setting. And often they are vastly improved by aerosol paint. But, nonetheless, these buildings are not "public" property.
However, many building owners permit the work to be done. This seems to be a growing trend. And, in Long Island City, 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, Inc., “The Institute of Higher Burnin’," is an outdoor art exhibit space which is considered to be the world’s premiere “graffiti Mecca,” where aerosol artists from around the globe paint colorful pieces on the walls of a 200,000-square-foot factory building. The founder says, however, that "Graffiti is a label for writers who vandalize. Aerosol art takes hours and days. It's a form of calligraphy."

Certainly cooperation is best for all, allowing more time for better work and even working with the owners for things like incorporation of company signage elements.

The major epicenter of this type of sanctioned aerosol art is the block-long, 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m2) factory building complex in Long Island City, Queens, known as 5 Pointz (includes a link to the photo gallery).

The mural done at Pulse Plastics shown in today's photo was the work of Tats Cru. The artists who form the group and their work are impressive. Some have been commissioned by major international corporations. You can read more about Tats Cru and see their work here.

The owner of Pulse Plastics, Alan Backleman, sanctioned the work on his building and is pleased with the result. He agreed with me that the building-long mural is an improvement and welcome facelift for the previously drab structure. Already, Alan told me that the building has been used as a backdrop for film and commercial work.

It is questionable, of course, whether covering every neglected structure in the five boroughs of New York City with aerosol art would be desirable. Without some sort of cooperation and coordination, the urban landscape could end up looking like a cacophony of circus posters. But we are a long way from that concern.

The Bronx's image has been troubled, however, the borough was not as blighted as it appears today. The period from 1920-1950 was documented in The Beautiful Bronx by historian Lloyd Ultan. The book came out in 1979 two years after President Carter visited the South Bronx, a visit that did much to project a negative image of the borough across the nation.

At one time, the borough used a wastebasket and the slogan "Don't Dump on the Bronx" for their anti-littering campaign. In 2001, the Bronx replaced the image with one of a Day Lily and the slogan "The Beautiful Bronx," inspired by Ultan's book title, as part of a beautification program and effort to improve the Bronx's image.

Unwanted graffiti was a large part of the visual blight that dominated most vistas in the borough. As everyone knows, however, tools can be used for good or bad, and when seen in this light, it is perhaps not so ironic that the aerosol spray demonstrates quite clearly that in times of need, your worst enemy can become Your Best Friend :)

More graffiti and aerosol art: Rattus rattus, Skame, Columbo, Monk and CSI, TMNK, Unguent, Unkindest Etch of All, Scrap Yard, 11 Spring Street, Dumbo Arts Festival, Mars Bar, Totem

A Blank Slate

I once had a long discussion with a woman making the case for creative writing being so much more difficult than writing commercial copy. I had been slaving over writing catalog copy for our product line, and it was excruciating to say what I wanted in the space allotted. I disagreed with her viewpoint and countered that the constraints and parameters of writing advertising can be extremely challenging, more so than writing fiction. She said it could not compare to writing a novel, where you start with a blank slate.

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The Caryatids

There is much sensory input at street level in New York City that it is easy to miss those things which are above ground. Look up and you can explore the architecture so often overlooked by visitors and residents alike.

Here, at 91 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, is a commercial loft building built in 1894 and designed by Louis Korn. At the sixth floor level are six caryatids under four Corinthian columns and two matching pilasters. A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support, taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head.

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Good That's Olde Too

At one time, modern high-rise buildings were marketed as "luxury." The apartments were sterile and devoid of character, with the most boring cookie-cutter layouts imaginable. They sported only the basic modcons, nothing luxurious at all. In New York City, luxury really just meant the absence of squalor. Not roach- or rat-infested, not a tenement, not a railroad flat, not dilapidated, not in a ghetto. In short, luxury was about what a place was NOT.

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Leave it to the Critics

One of my first art "discussions" was regarding a piece of work I saw on the streets in SoHo in the early 1970s. I recall it was a flat surface with an array of bolts - essentially looking like a bed of nails.

Having done carpentry work, I felt that I did know something about bolts and that someone driving them into a board at different heights did not constitute art.

However, an artist friend at the time, in a futile attempt to educate my boorish manner, informed me that what made it art was conceptual, not reducing it to its material elements. Like the defense once made by Marcel Duchamps, whom I did not know at the time - it was art because he said so. I was, nonetheless, not impressed - to me, bolts were just bolts.

This type of installation art is controversial, even amongst those who are schooled and knowledgeable about fine arts. To put it bluntly, coming from someone who was originally a science guy, my question is whether there is any objective criteria for art and, if so, where does artisanship end and art begin?

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Shop Class

I was given the choice of making the pump lamp or a flying horse. I asked about making other things but was told those were the choices. I really didn't want to make a pump lamp that much, but it was better than a flying horse wall plaque. I understand the need for discipline, training, and honing skills. This was shop class in 8th grade, where no independent thinking or creative expression is allowed. But it's a shame, because I liked making things and would have gotten more involved in class. Eventually I would become a manufacturer.
So, yesterday, I was very pleased to get the following email invitation for The Calling, a theater of fire and song:

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Fountains

Depending on who's counting, the Palace of Versailles has more than 1,400 fountains. Due to the enormous amount of water required to fuel them, they are turned on infrequently. Even at the time of Louis XIV, the water supply was inadequate to run all of the fountains at once. There was even talk of diverting the River Eure to supply water to the fountains.

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Off-White by Design

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I must tell you that I really don't like being in my apartment much. I say ungrateful because although I have worked hard like many, I have also been lucky. And to live in an 1837 landmark townhouse on Washington Square is one of the rare privileges afforded very few in New York City.

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In a Different Light

Generally, the terms shallow or lack of depth are not positive. However, in the world of photography, these words take on a very different meaning.

Technically, this site started as a photoblog with each posting featuring a photo. Ironically, I have never discussed photography per se or photographic techniques here, but the understanding of depth of field is so critical in photography that I have decided to feature it in today's post.

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Mike Fontana

Part 2 - Surrender to the Music (see Part 1 here)


Immersion took on a new meaning for me when virtual reality technologies were developed and became surrounded by media buzz. The operative phrase became total immersion experience. For something to truly feel real, input to all five senses must reach a level where the user perceives them to be real.

In on our non-virtual world, I believe we have an analogous situation. When we reach sensory overload and the stimuli are positive, we feel euphoria, exhilaration, or pure joy. We lose the ability to intellectualize, analyze and stand outside the experience as observer. You are fully IN the experience.

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Mike Fontana

Part 1




In May, I was asked by a friend if I would be willing to guest host a local access TV program which he will be producing using the facilities at MNN, a local access cable television network based in New York City. This is an exciting opportunity and I readily agreed.

The show is being put together as a final project for my friend's training at the network. His plan is a 28 minute program consisting of 2 interviews with two artists. One of those men is Mike Fontana. We agreed to visit Mike together for a preliminary meeting. Mike lives in one those unlikely locations - a street so well known for its shops that the prospect of an artist living on St. Marks Place between 2nd and 3rd Avenue is hard to imagine.

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It's Perfect

I was once led to visit an artist on Broadway, only a few blocks from my office. Not knowing whether my destination would be of interest, I paid no mind to exactly where I was going or who I was visiting. I have no idea what her name was to this day, but we had a conversation that left an indelible imprint in my mind.

Her work was quite unique - furniture as art. What particularly struck me was her use of machinist's tools and equipment. Her work was impeccable - I had never seen anything crafted so perfectly and I told her so. She did not take the complement but instead corrected my choice of words. Precision she said, not Perfection.

Touché. A distinction very well made. We had a conversation about it, but she was preaching to the choir. I have reflected on her comment a myriad of times - often when I work or whenever the word "perfect" is used emphatically in praise of a product well made.

When it comes to man made articles, it is quite true. Perfection does not exist, only tolerances and precision. Given measuring devices accurate enough, anything manufactured will vary from its specifications. Certainly the eye or hand will be unable to perceive variations within tolerances in a finely crafted article, but the lack of perfection is there nonetheless.

I'm not sure what surprises people most - what I do for a living or that I do it in Manhattan in a prime SoHo location. I do maintain a machine shop on Broadway. In the photo, I am machining a part on a 1951 LeBlond lathe.The machine is a real workhorse, made at a time when American machinery was built to last. This machine will likely outlive me.

I often wonder how many lathes are left in New York City, particularly Manhattan. I only know of a couple of machine shops. In the 1990s, there was a small machinist who occupied an entire one story building on Crosby Street around the corner from me. At one time, numerous other small manufacturers dotted the area, even entire buildings were occupied. I never appreciated the luxury of strolling to a machine shop and in minutes discussing a project, leaving drawings and picking up parts in hours or a day. The place is now a carpet shop.

My lathe was purchased at Grand Machinery Exchange on Lafayette Street in a area once known as machine shop row. There were 40 machinery dealers in the area north of Canal Street. Grand Machinery was the last of these dealers and relocated to Long Island in 2006. I very much would have loved to do a story on them, however, I only learned of their closing a few days after their move. My visit there was only to press my face against dirty windows and peer into an empty industrial ground floor space.

I do love machining a metal part. It is so satisfying to produce something with a high level of precision in a world of the unpredictable, uncertain or mutable and riddled with poorly made articles. When I take a beautiful gleaming metal part off that lathe, check it with my Mitutoyo digital caliper and find that the diameter is exactly what I wanted, there are no thoughts about that artist on Broadway and the nuances of perfection versus precision. It's perfect.

Related Posts: Brawling Over Brands, In Industry, Because I'm the Best, Released From Captivity, Space Surplus Metals, Canal Rubber

Rattus rattus

I am very disappointed to learn that the species of rat most common to New York City is the brown rat or Rattus norvegicus and not the black rat, Rattus Rattus. The repetition of genus and species seemed to fit so nicely with the popular: New York, New York, so nice they named it twice.

The rat commonly seen in New York is the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), aka the common rat, sewer rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Brown Norway rat, Norwegian rat, or wharf rat. It is one of the world's most common rats. The name is actually a misnomer as they do not originate from Norway. After human beings, the rat is the most successful animal on the planet, having inhabited virtually every country and land mass. Read more here.

Rat also is used to characterize New York's landlords and store owners - see the use of the large inflated rat in my story Attention. For those who want to embrace the rat in order to appear edgy, there are establishments that use the rat for imaging and naming, such as the trendy SoHo shop Yellow Rat Bastard. According to the New York Times:

When the flagship store opened in 1994, it installed cages with several dozen rats in its front window to create buzz. The rats were eventually removed from the window, but many employees said the rats continued to run around the store and the basement storeroom.

The shop encouraged graffiti artists to tag the exterior of the shop. Ironically, in 2008, the store agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle a lawsuit over unpaid wages and overtime, paying back wages to more than a thousand employees.

We have so many rats in New York City, that in a way it is a shame we do not have our own species. It would be so befitting of a city with such a large ego to be able to lay claim to Rattus rattus...

Photo note: I ran across the piece of graffiti in the photo on East 2nd Street in the East Village.

Related Postings: I have done numerous stories on rats: i'm lovin' it, Rats Gone Wild, Rats R Us, Attention and Wildlife Control.

On Parallel Tracks

It is so peculiar and serendipitous that in researching Duke Riley, who created the art in the photo, I found that on September 15, 2010, I had already written about Riley and his exploration of U Thant Island. On further examination, I see that we have many other interests in common, particularly a strong passion for islands and exploring the edges and unknown areas of the New York City. Riley says of his work:

My work addresses the prospect of residual but forgotten unclaimed frontiers on the edge and inside overdeveloped urban areas, and their unsuspected autonomy.

Other shared passions include Bequia, a lesser known island in the West Indies neighboring St. Vincent. In the many years and visits I made to the Caribbean islands, Bequia was always on my to go list, but I never made it there. Riley once visited the island, where he became inspired to make boats. He also has an interest in Plum Beach and Dead Horse Bay.

I discovered Riley's work in the photo on a recent ride in the E train. The poster was quite long - hence the two photos. The work was commissioned by the MTA Arts For Transit in 2010. It is available as an art card from the MTA website - see here.

A Brooklyn resident, Riley has a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in Sculpture from the Pratt Institute. His work is noted for its nautical themes. Riley has also built many seacraft. In 2007, with two companions, he built and launched a small wooden submarine, the Turtle, a replica of a Revolutionary War era craft. They were arrested by the New York City police when they came within 200 feet (without authorization) of the Queen Mary 2, docked at the Red Hook Brooklyn cruise ship terminal. Riley has circumnavigated the city's waters in a homemade rowboat and built ships for staging a sea battle.

Although I do not share his love of all things nautical, I still hope to run into him combing Dead Horse Bay or in the subway, somewhere On Parallel Tracks :)

I'm Really Good at Paper Mache

It is slowly becoming abundantly clear to me how artistic abilities are little recognized or encouraged in young people. I have a story about a childhood friend so remarkable, that we are planning to write and publish a joint memoir as a book. But that's another story for another time.

I had another childhood friend, who shall remain nameless, who was quite sarcastic and cynical. Our community was doing a small performance of Alice In Wonderland. I was unaware of this production until it was nearly time for performance - hence I had no opportunity to audition or perform in the show. I took a last chance to ingratiate myself with the woman in charge and offered my services to make any figures needed from paper mache. I told her in front of my friend, "I'm really good with paper mache and working with wire."

Once we were alone, my friend was uproarious and quoted with great pleasure, "I'm really good with paper mache." Apparently, he found my skill set to be inconsequential and my statement of such, ridiculous. He took every opportunity subsequent to that incident to torture me with that quote. In hindsight, it does smack of a young boy desperately trying to win approval. But what is wrong with a young student who shows a creative interest?

Supporting a child who has an artistic temperament and abilities is a tough call. On my recent interview with Professor Gurland (see story Part 1 here and Part 2 here), he told me not only of his work as a jazz musician, but also of his son's interest. He made a deal with his boy - graduate from college and he can do anything he wants as far as pursuing music. A degree will provide a safety cushion for future employment. A reasonable compromise for the concerned parent.

For myself, it has taken the better part of my adult life to recognize my interest in creative pursuits - writing, photography, graphic arts. The evidence has been there throughout my life - building a darkroom as a child, crafting various objects and models, origami and designing products for my business.

I was however, steered towards a career in mathematics as is the case. My life might have been very different however, had someone just recognized that I'm Really Good at Paper Mache :)

Photo Note: Two Too Large Tables are located at Hudson River Park. The two works, designed by Allan and Ellen Wexler, were constructed from stainless steel and ipe wood and fabricated by Polich Art Works. One is comprised of 13 chairs, 7 feet tall, supporting a 16-foot-square plane. The other, also 16-feet-square, is 30 inches tall with integral seating areas. One serves as a shade pavilion and the other a community table.

“The seemingly random placement of chairs directs and focuses our views of the river, pathways and landscape. Pathways cut into the tabletop lead to clusters of chairs. When people sit they are completely surrounded. Their unconventional placement brings people together in unexpected groupings.”

Allan Wexler and Ellen Wexler are Chelsea residents and collaborate on public art projects; Allan teaches at Parsons The New School for Design.

The Perfect Gift

In 1978, High Tech: The Industrial Style and Source Book for The Home, written by design journalists Joan Kron and Suzanne Slesin, was published. This and White By Design were two hardcover coffee table books that I frequently saw in bookstores, promised myself I would buy but never did. The raison d'etre of the Hi Tech design movement is seen as an evolution of the scientific and technical advances of the 1970s and abundance of hi tech devices in common use, leading to the appropriation of industrial and technical products in the home. The book was seminal and influential in use of the term Hi Tech - read more about it here.

As a manufacturer for many decades, I found the use of the Hi Tech products in the home to be appealing for other reasons as well - the generally superior construction and cleaner, simpler design of industrial or commercial products. Those who use products in a commercial environment typically value function over form and durability over anything else. The foolishness of saving a few dollars purchasing equipment quickly becomes apparent when having to stop the wheels of production. Someone in business simply needs products that work well and reliably. And although aesthetics does not typically drive the design of commercial equipment, it does evolve towards the simplest form and construction that does the job properly. Often, this design becomes iconic and attractive from a minimalist perspective. One example is the bullet styled garbage can in stainless steel.

Industrial elements have other appeals. Around New York City, in the outer fringes and edges, one will often find photo shoots with fashion models superimposed over gritty or industrial urban backdrops. The juxtaposition of the very disparate elements is quite effective in making the subject stand out.

All this considered, I was stunned to see the couple in today's photos under the Manhattan Bridge on a freezing cold January day. The wedding is still a rather traditional affair and this was an extremely radical departure from the ever popular New York City locales used for wedding photo shoots such as Central Park on a beautiful spring or summer day.

I wish I was friends with this couple because I have such the perfect wedding gift that I really think they would love, a set of two books - Hi Tech and White by Design :)

Toys "R" Us

Everyone has their comfort zones and for most, familiarity breeds contentment, not contempt. But I really have a difficult time with visitors who travel all the way to New York City and seek out the same shops and restaurants they have at home. Like eating at McDonalds after shopping at national chain retailers.

I am quite guilty myself of frequenting a small group of restaurants in a city with tens of thousands. When my stomach calls for refueling, this is typically not the time I want to become a risk taker. I want the tried and true - to eat the things I know are guaranteed to bring satisfaction. But there are limits to living in the comfort zone.

When I guide visitors brimming with enthusiasm for those things unique to the city, I am galvanized; when I find myself with someone looking for the places that are familiar to them, I begin to short circuit and lose voltage. On one occasion, I had in my custody a woman who rejected every cuisine I offered. She commented "At this point, McDonalds is starting to look good." When we finally agreed on Italian, she rejected every entree. The only pasta she would eat was not on the menu.

The most frustrating outing was one occasion when visited by my nephews when young. Knowing full well what I was dealing with, I put quite a bit of thought into what kids would want and geared the day towards the big and impressive - things like the Brooklyn Bridge and the new planetarium at the Museum of Natural History. What was requested, however, was a visit to the large Toys "R" Us at Times Square. I've been in a bad mood ever since.

If you are a shopper, you could be visiting places like the Morrison Hotel Gallery. There are two locations - the older at 124 Prince Street in SoHo and the newer (seen in the photos) at 313 Bowery, appropriately, the former location of the CBGB Gallery. In my recent visit, I spent some time chatting with Rick Edwards and Vicki Albanese, sharing stories of music venues and encounters with music legends in the past.

The gallery represents a bevy of renowned photographers, such as the legendary Jim Marshall who recently passed away - see here. The Morrison Hotel Gallery was founded in 2001 by former record company executive and producer Peter Blachley, former independent record store owner Rich Horowitz, and music photographer Henry Diltz. In 2008, a deal was made with Sony to sell photos from the archives of Columbia Records.

The Morrison Hotel Gallery has some of the largest collections in the world of historic rock photos. If you are downtown, I recommend you drop in to browse. If you prefer, I also know of another little known place to visit for a unique New York City experience, located in an off the beaten path location. It's in an area called Times Square and the place is called Toys "R" Us :)

Horticulture

Sometime in the 1980s a good customer and I were chatting in my office. In the course of conversation, he mentioned his excursion to visit Lillian Openheimer in Union Square at her Origami center. Lillian is largely credited with introducing origami to the United States.

My customer was pleased to learn that we shared a mutual interest in origami - I had discovered the Japanese art of paper folding in high school and had made a myriad of creatures, always looking for an opportunity to make a flapping crane.

At one juncture in the conversation he showed me paper he had acquired from Lillian's studio. My first instinct was to take a ruler from my desk and measure it. He was furious, incensed by my act of measuring. Apparently, quantifying or measuring the media was NOT a valid response or way to appreciate the artform. Storming out of my office, my manager at the time managed to calm him down some, explaining that I meant no insult and I was not incapable of appreciating Origami, but that I had an analytical side.

You can't dictate how someone will interpret art or what aspect they will take interest in, often to the chagrin and frustration of artists whose explanatory and dictatory diatribes fall on deaf ears. A friend who introduced me to Boaz Vaadia, told me of an incident where he was once at the studio of the sculptor who became frustrated that my friend was taking a greater interest in the mechanisms of construction and moving heavy stone than of the art itself - see his work here.

I was told by a regular reader of this blog about an often photographed crocheted bicycle on the street in the Lower East Side at Elizabeth and Broome Streets ((lower left photo) near the Christoper Henry Gallery. Not realizing there was a connection between the gallery and the bike, I strolled inside to discover an exhibition of the work of Polish artist Agata Oleksiak on the second floor. An entire room and every object in it was crocheted in a riot of colors.

Olek makes a point (evidenced in the exhibit title - Knitting is for Pus****) to differentiate between knitting and crocheting. From her website:

A loop after a loop. Hour after hour my madness becomes crochet. Life and art are inseparable. The movies I watch while crocheting influence my work, and my work dictates the films I select. I crochet everything that enters my space. Sometimes it's a text message, a medical report, found objects. There is the unraveling, the ephemeral part of my work that never lets me forget about the limited life of the art object and art concept. What do I intend to reveal? You have to pull the end of the yarn and unravel the story behind the crochet.

This may be a valid and crucial distinction in her art, however, I am afraid that the vast majority of observers will make a cursory examination of her work and come to their own conclusions.

On August 29, 2008, I wrote a piece called Nuance. I think the very essence of many works of art hinges on subtlety and nuance and to miss a fine point or distinction can mean to really miss everything. Often it is not so much the incapacity of the viewer to understand but rather the unwillingness to take the time to see and learn. So much to do and so little time.

I ran through Olek's exhibit quickly. It is only through writing this story and reading about her work, her bio and watching interviews did I become aware of her mission. Perhaps the epigram, attributed to Dorothy Parker, best summarizes: "You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think" :)

Note: This epigram is a play on the American proverb: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, dating back to the 12th century: "A man maie well bring a horse to the water, But he can not make him drinke without he will."

Think Big

In 1979, Think Big opened in SoHo. This shop was started by Phyllis Prinz and Robert Malkin, who created a product line of oversized replicas of a variety of products - tennis rackets, Crayola crayons, paper clips, pencils, postage stamps, toothbrushes, etc. I frequented the shop often and was once gifted an oversize Bayer aspirin. The shop was a roaring success, closing in 1994 (and later rejuvenated as an online shop by Jeff Bruette as Great Big Stuff). There was a man, however, where the concept of the oversize had also been brewing for a much different reason: Fred Garver (aka Fred Garbo) of South Paris, Maine.

I have known Fred Garbo for 35 years - he is in fact one of my oldest customers and quite a unique individual. His credits, like his talents, are myriad. I do not say this lightly. In 1980, Fred auditioned for the Broadway show Barnum. The part called for acting, dancing, singing, acrobatics, playing an instrument and juggling - Fred was chosen over 500 auditioners.

Since our very first interactions, I became aware how Fred has always been very focused on the VISUAL impact of any stage prop and its SIZE. This became a virtual obsession, explaining the evolution of his show of 18 years and his invention and utilization of large inflated props/characters. His character Led Zeplin and his inflated suit have been the envy of many a performer and have also spawned a few imitators.

His partner in the show is Daielma Santos, who was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dance in London. She has worked as a professional ballet dancer and teacher. Having met while Fred was touring, Daielma became fasicnated with his inflatable suit. A partnership soon followed. A number of pieces in their act showcase Daielma's dance talents. Her grace, fluidity and charm are arresting both on stage and off.

Last week I was called by a friend who informed me that the Fred Garbo Inflatable Theater Company was performing Saturday, January 8th, at Symphony Space in New York City. She invited me to accompany her, her husband and their 3-year old child to the show.

Fred is a resident of Maine, where he originally moved to study and train with his mentor, the late Tony Montanaro of Celebration Mime Theater. He railed against the stereotypical and overdone illusions of mimes at that time and developed his own unique brand of physical theater, incorporating his skills and training in juggling, mime, acrobatics and clowning.

The Inflatable Theater show involves juggling, dance, and a large variety of inflated objects and characters moved through the acrobatics of Fred and Daielma inside. The show is highly polished and very successful, a great pleaser of children and adults worldwide.

During the time that Fred worked in Barnum, Fred lived in New York City. We formed a closer relationship at that time - in addition to his performing, Fred became a teacher of juggling in my studio. A lover of nature and Maine, I was astonished at how quickly Fred adapted to New York, navigating its shoals undaunted and learning about it so quickly. In 1983, Fred, along with Bob Berky, and Michael Moschen, created Foolsfire, an Obie Award winning 3-man show, which I had the privilege of seeing. He was also the man inside Sesame Street's Barkley the Dog. I have always considered him to be an honorary New Yorker. It's seems so appropriate for a man who adapted to city life so readily and whose life's philosophy has always been to Think Big :)

Surfaces and Surfing

One of the things I don't like about websites is the lack of transparency. It is virtually impossible to get a sense of the depth and breadth of the content. With New York Daily Photo, for example, each visitor comes into one single page. I have, however, done over 1,400 stories. How many will be read? Who will take the time to explore the archives or search on keywords? Many of my best stories and photos are buried.

Of course there are ways of redesigning a site to optimize and encourage exploration of previous content and I intend to do that. With print media, however, with just a cursory examination, you immediately get a lay of the land. If someone hands you a 3,000 page catalog, you only need to rifle through it briefly to get a good sense of its offerings and areas of specialty. But a website may have 100 products or one million and only lots of digging will reveal that. Superior graphics may give the illusion that one company has more to offer than it really does.

Walking the streets of New York observing people is much like surfing the web, seeing only their first page. To get a sense of a person's content, you're going to have to stop, meet and dig deeper.

I have been doing that for nearly five years now and as readers of this site can attest, the depth, breadth, eccentricity and brilliance of many unassuming people that inhabit the streets of New York City is extraordinary. Of course, not every person possesses even one of these superlative attributes and even fewer could be fairly said to have all, but there are enough to make contacts with people in New York City an unending journey into the world of surprises.

This city is a magnet for those driven for success in many arenas and also as an important brewery for artists of all persuasions. Although electronic media and communication have decentralized the arts somewhat, only a very large city is going to provide ample opportunities for many - painters, musicians, dancers, and other performers, etc. who really need to interact and interrelate in person. Despite the online world, there is still a dynamism and synergy when people are physically together.

I have often seen the sculptures of Sidi Abdul near my office at Spring Street and Broadway. I stopped to talk to him briefly last night as he was packing up. We exchanged contact information. I asked Sidi about the nature of his work and he informed me buyers purchased his work and displayed them as art pieces in homes etc.

When I receive his biographical information, I will update this posting. For now, enjoy what you see. I love the elegance of his work. There is more on his Flickr site here. Notice the use of New York City subway maps in the construction of these sculptures. I have often been critical on this website of examples where appearance reigned over substance. However, there are many things where genuine beauty lies on the surface. Surfaces and surfing are not always a bad thing :)