At the Gallery, II

Washington, Connecticut

Red Leaves, Yellow Leaves

Torrington, Connecticut

At the Gallery, I

Washington Depot, Connecticut

Railroad Street

Waterbury, Connecticut

I'm Here Legally

Wisconsin Dells

Weeds

Torrington, Connecticut

This is the same parking lot as in Friday morning's post. Considering the condition of the paving, someone is taking pretty good care of the evergreen hedge, despite a few weeds.

Washington Depot, Connecticut

Lots of art gallery openings around here today, which will likely feature in upcoming blog posts. The sentiment commercially expressed at this gallery gives me a mixed reaction. It's 100% correct if you buy a work of art because you love it, respond to it, want to live with it in your home, and can afford it. In that case there is only the risk that you were too hasty in your judgement and bought something that has lots of impact but no staying power for you, in which case you can probably resell it before everybody else also figures out it's vapid.

But the comparison to the stock market is troubling. In financial terms, contemporary art—by which I don't mean any school or style but simply work by people alive and doing their work today—is about as secure an investment as penny stocks, or Enron, whether it's a hundred bucks or a hundred thousand. When it gets into the stratosphere of millions pricing it becomes self-fulfilling for a while, but that too shall pass. Especially when paid for a chromogenic print that will fade away. Fools abound.

FOR RENT

Saxton's River, Vermont

This is a charming New England town, but when we went through last July there were a lot of empty store fronts along the main street.

Snakes!

Naugatuck, Connecticut

I've always been interested in official non-graffiti. Here the avant-garde (those who precede the asphalt truck) have marked out the really deep fissures in the pavement for filling in, ignoring lesser, though long, cracks. Thus the American infrastructure deteriorates inexorably, one little hardly significant bit at a time. The town crew tagger has kind of a nice hand, though.

Free Food!

Woodbury, Connecticut

The local health food (and very fancy organic food, etc.) store had a free wine and cheese party at The Old Town Hall yesterday evening. Surprise, surprise, a whole lot of people turned out for exotic cheese and crackers, tastings of wine from the couple of local vineyards, and samples from a couple eateries and caterers.