I found five more cents in the past few weeks, bringing my total 2023 haul to seventy-one cents! I love when I spend $70 on allergy meds then find a penny on the way back to the car. Pennies from heaven are a real thing.
It Makes Sense
Category Archives: Karen Tashkovski
Living the Disco Dream
When I asked John Peluso what he’d be wearing while performing as front man for The United Booty Foundation’s long anticipated reunion show, he said he would have a costume change between sets. “You can do a costume change too,” he added when I showed him some of my shimmer-shammer style considerations.
I ended up wearing a retro-seventies inspired maxi dress from the company Farm Rio with my Stuart Weitzman platform mules. The “congregation” (read- Booty faithful) were assigned little disco ball necklaces as VIPs.
He wore rose-colored glasses and glittery platform shoes with his two suit looks and, along with the father-of-all-disco-balls around his neck, he looked AMAZING!
“JT” (John’s UBF stage name, T for Travolta) is all about the tongue-n-cheek fun that disco music provides. He always brings that energy to The United Booty Foundation. in all its timeless, and timely exuberance. While the other members of this fabulous band play elsewhere, John prefers the loyalty and camaraderie of the original crew and hasn’t performed since the one-night gig they’d played in 2015 and before that for many years in the ’90s in venues around Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo among other regional concerts.
I love the way these talented musicians support him and allow him to do his thing and that thing is truly magical. They are the best of the best locally and nationally (drummer Jeff Tortora performs with the Blue Man Group in Las Vegas, which is why UBF gigs are so few and far between).
On May 20th, 2023 at a place called Sharkey’s, Liverpool, New York came alive with the sounds of Saturday Night Fever, KC & the Sunshine Band, Diana Ross, EW&F, and so many more great dance tunes, including Barry Manilow and even the theme from The Jeffersons (a ’70s TV sit-com).
It was nostalgia at its finest for those of us who ventured into discos circa the late ’70s (I was under age, btw), as well as those who enjoyed that memory more fully in the ’90s via UBF. In my case – both. And for the twenty-somethings who experienced it for the first time, I will add a collective you’re welcome.
So incredibly fun! It was my dream come true, for sure, for sure.
If you missed it, stay tuned. Because JT, Hutch, Starsky, Dr. Fever and the gang will be back at Sharkey’s for a disco Halloween bash – on October 21, 2023. Follow them on Facebook for the deets.
https://www.facebook.com/unitedbootyfoundation
If you are searching for the joy in life, it is all packaged here. The United Booty Foundation will rise again to shake, shake, shake their proverbial “Caucasian” booties and continue to live the disco dream.
Love, love, LOVE you times infinity, Booty man. <3
Teacher Appreciation
Bunny Trail
The bunny sculptures are finally finished. My 8th grade Studio in Art students (Chittenango Middle School, Chittenango, NY) created these papier-mache sculptures just in time for Orthodox Easter. They are currently on display in the school library.
We recycled Ithaca hummus containers for the baskets and Starbucks iced coffee bottles for the armature. In addition, we used paper towels, aluminum foil and masking tape.
The papier-mache is paper towel bits adhered with Mod Podge. Then we added acrylic paint.
Since it is the year of the rabbit in the Chinese zodiac, I thought it a good time to try this first-time lesson. I am pleased with the results. They are really cute!
The Mr. T. Mystery
They spelled his name wrong on the wall – I just can’t wrap my head around that. Is it the negative in Positive, Negative, Shallow and Deep? This is the title of part of the dual exhibition by artist Tyrone Johnson-Neuland at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, New York. The other show is at the Cayuga Museum (also in Auburn).
I am not a fan of using positive and negative space to describe two-dimensional activity. The negative is supposed to be the voids in and around a three-dimensional sculpture. Figure and ground is my art language to describe visual depth in a painting.
Question: Shallow vs. deep – are these your emotional extremes?
Question: How do you feel about this name flub? Or was it intentionally the negative?
We can ask him the answers to these and all questions regarding this series of abstract paintings on Friday, April 7, 2023 at 5:30 pm. There is a First Friday soiree at the Schweinfurth that evening.
Tyron/Tyrone’s artwork will be on display through May 28, 2023.
(From SMAC website)
Artist’s Statement
My paintings follow very much in the long-established tradition of the Expressionists, using an intensity of color and gestural brushstrokes to portray the strength of feeling and emotion. The subject matters vary from figurative to abstract but always with an exploration of spatial, social, or self-awareness. I will use any paint medium that is at my disposal and thrive on what can be unexpected results. The process is always a battle of the chaotic vs the introspective. We all have different coping skills and those influence how we think and react to our daily trials and tribulations. My art allows me the opportunity to challenge and question myself while searching for clarity in my existence in today’s world.
About the Artist
Oswego-based artist Tyrone Johnson-Neuland has been creating art for 35-plus years. Johnson-Neuland received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Syracuse University in 1990 and a Master of Arts from SUNY Oswego in 1999. He is currently the Assistant Director of Instructional Technologies at SUNY Oswego. His work has been exhibited throughout New York, as well as in national shows in Philadelphia and Chicago. Johnson-Neuland’s expressionistic paintings are developed from personal and emotional feelings that are sparked by the day-to-day experiences of a father, husband, employee, son, and general spectator of the modern world.
They Have it Made
Seventy-four New York state-based artists comprise the current MINY art exhibition at Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, NY, including my middle school art teacher circa the 1970s, Mrs, Joyce Homan!
Her piece, “COVID Bubbles” is a watercolor.
(From the Schweinfurth website)
Jurors
A New Hartford native, Gary Sczerbaniewicz currently lives and works in Buffalo. He earned degrees at Munson-Williams Proctor Institute School of Art, Alfred University, and the University at Buffalo.
“My recent sculptural work investigates the concept of cognitive dissonance as articulated through an architectural lexicon,” he says on his website. “I am drawn to create works in which an unknown, sudden, violent event has rendered a space inert, transforming it from its original intended function into a hybrid and liminal zone. A recovering child of both Catholicism and the Cold War, my works possess an acute fondness for cultural marginalia: the post-apocalyptic, the science-fictional, the Fortean, the weird and the eerie (as articulated by theorist Mark Fisher), the occult, and the many bewildering worlds of alternative history and conspiracy theory.
Sczerbaniewicz has had solo exhibits in Buffalo, Niagara, Philadephia, Connecticut, Delaware, and Florida, and has been included in group exhibitions in Toronto, New York City, Cleveland, Indiana, and Texas. His entry to Made in NY 2020 at the Schweinfurth won Best in Show award.
Theda Sandiford, mixed media artist
Based in Jersey City, NJ, Theda Sandiford creates multi-disciplinary experiences that provide a safe space to explore themes such as equity and inclusion, sustainability, and personal well-being.
“Using personal conflict as a starting point, I juxtapose various fibers with a variety of found materials using free form weaving, coiling, knotting, wrapping, and jewelry-making techniques,” Sandiford told Artwork Archive. “Meticulously collected materials, transformed by their collective memory become ‘social fabric’ weaving together contemporary issues and personal narratives.”
Her work has been selected for Excellence in Fibers, curated by Fiber Art Now; displayed publicly in installations in New Jersey, New York, Florida, and more; and displayed in solo exhibits in New Jersey, New York City, Chicago, and more.
Kevin Larmon is a retired professor emeritus and Program Coordinator Art, Design, and Transmedia in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. He received a BFA from Harpur College at SUNY Binghamton, and currently resides in Upstate New York.
For over three decades, Kevin Larmon has received critical acclaim for creating paintings that lyrically explore the divide between abstraction and referential imagery. His work has been associated with the post-conceptualism and neo-conceptual art movements, which were prominent aspects of exhibitions of the early 80s East Village Gallery Nature Morte and with critics/curators Tricia Collins and Richard Milazzo shaping the nature of painting after the rise of conceptual art.
His work is included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, and Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the recipient of an Atlantic-Pacific Fellowship and a Pollack Krasner Foundation grant.
Pattern and texture is at play here. So many paintings, prints and mixed-media pieces are visually embellished with intricate segments of color, while macrame and other crafts, including crochet, embroidery and weaving adds the tactile component, which creates a cohesive bond to the exhibit. After perusing the jurors’ individual dossiers, it all makes sense.
It is a wonderful show. The art is for sale. Made in New York 2023 opened last night and continues through May 28, 2023.
The museum is open Wednesdays-Saturdays 10:00 am – 5:00 pm and Sundays 1:00 – 5:00 pm. Visit their website for details.
Teaching Bergeron
My Art-8 students viewed the paintings of Canadian artist Daniel Bergeron, specifically, his installation in Regent Park in Toronto.
Then they painted the teachers and staff at our school! The steps were as follows:
- Create an Abstract Expressionist base coat on the canvas.
- Trace a contour line version of the face photograph onto the canvas via graphite paper then paint the lines with black paint.
- Add paint – Abstract Expressionism, solid areas, and patterned areas.
- Using Mod Podge, adhere parts of the photograph onto the painting, as well as some patterned paper.
- Touch ups plus add bits of fluorescent and metallic paints.
This is my sample (above). We used acrylic paint.
Here are the results. They are on display in the school library. I’ve got one more class finishing up tomorrow for a total of fifty-five paintings. So fun! <3
