October 29, 2006 by MoPat.

The thing about “missing” Buffalo is that I’m not in Buffalo, so I can tell you what I miss only after hearing firsthand stories about the awful Friday the 13th snowstorm and havoc it wreaked. And I still believe that, even if you were there and suffered the effects, one day, you will miss Buffalo, too, despite this storm.

I miss waking up and being surprised by seeing snowfall in October. I miss hearing on the radio that school’s out for the day, in more places than the usual rural towns and villages that luck out every winter. I miss seeing the mess left by fierce, unpredictable Nature cleaned up over time–totally cleaned up, until next time.

I miss people who, just because it’s in their nature, knock on their neighbors’ doors to see if they’re OK. I miss neighbors who shovel your sidewalk and a path to your door as well as their own, expecting nothing in return. I miss seeing kids and grownups rolling a small snowball in the wet snow, pulling up packed, dense white stuff all the way from the grass below, then trying to lift that huge ball onto the first huge ball to make a snowman.

I miss walking along carless roads in the crisp night air hearing only my breath and the crunch of snow under my boots.

There are plenty of things I don’t miss, too, but I do miss the character those things instill in the people who learn to handle them.

Posted in Fall | Print | 1 Comment »

October 7, 2006 by MoPat.

In late summer, there are butterflies near the water, beautiful creatures whose fragile looking wings belie their ability to fly thousands of miles when it’s time to migrate. One day in early September, a butterfly flirted with me on the beach at Sunset Bay. I viewed it as a messenger: “Don’t be sad, Maureen!” Maybe it really was angel confetti, or maybe it was just an insect foraging in the washed up seaweed for its lunch.

Either way, it was lovely–shimmering golden orange, velvety black, electric blue, and so graceful and considerate. The next day I took my camera to the shore and waited. Two monarchs showed up. I watched them air dancing for a while, and when one landed on a seaweed pile, I perched in a squat, composed the shot and focused, and waited for it to open its wings. When it did, I took a picture, then relocated to the next stop in the butterfly cafeteria and waited again.

This went on for about forty minutes. When I got the slide film developed, I realized I had about twenty shots of the dull underside of the monarch’s folded wing, and only one or two decent shots of the full butterfly, but those images were kind of overwhelmed by the seaweed.

I got sore knees from hovering on my haunches, and instead of getting the image of a lifetime, I got frustrated because the creatures were too quick for me to capture their full beauty for my book. So what’s the message here?

Is it the adage: “Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes softly, and sits on your shoulder”? Or is it: “Next time try a tripod, a beach chair, and some faster film”?

Being from Buffalo, I’m thinking maybe it’s more like, “Beauty, like the summer, is fleeting. So when you come across it, breathe it in, appreciate it, and replay it in your mind’s eye often. Don’t worry so much about trapping it in two dimensions.”

Beauty, like the Buffalo Bills, will come back.

Posted in Summertime | Print | No Comments »

October 6, 2006 by MoPat.

Every time I visit Buffalo I stop at the Albright Knox Art Gallery. What a place! I have heard that it has the second largest collection of modern art in the world outside of New York City.

The pieces always inspire, amaze and delight, and some remind me of my childhood–the same pieces I saw back in the ’60s and ’70s, strolling through with my dad, or after riding my bike from Kenmore, or taking art lessons there and painting with really cool temperas (water paints). I remember being overwhelmed by the size of some of the paintings (Clyfford Stills) and how cool the sculptures were (by Louise Nevelson, Joseph Cornell, Robert Segal, Jean Arp among others).

Does what we look at as children affect who we are as adults? I think it must. I think if more kids sat and stared at Gottlieb’s huge red and black circles over a mishmosh of black swirls (”Dialogue”) or got up close to Camille Pisarro’s pointillist paintings to marvel at how a bunch of dots could turn into a warm autumn evening’s harvest scene, the world would be less violent and people would be much happier. I think if everyone could enter the Mirrored Room by Lucas Samaras (which is back at the Gallery after a hiatus who-knows-where) and see the endless reflections there, the concept of infinity would make sense, and humility as a virtue might make a comeback.

Posted in Summertime | Print | 2 Comments »