One day in New York City

So, January 8 2ooo, Stacey and I decided to go to New York for the day, we wanted to check out a few exhibitions.

First off we went to the Barry Freidman Gallery. This place is about the size of a 3 bedroom apartment. The show was furniture designed by Ed Weinberger.

Weinberger designs one of a kind pieces of furniture. He then has the designs built by master craftsman Scott Schmidt. Weinberger suffers from parkinson. He came to design late in life. I can’t remember how, but in his career before design he made lots of money. Then once he was diagnosed with parkinson he decided to spend his money having his designs built.

He teamed up with Schmidt, who was the only craftsman he could fine to agree to execute these very complicated drawings. Weinberger was also very picky about the materials he wanted used. Very exotic woods and hardware that was made special for each design. This was a very costly endeavor.

I remember reading in the New Yorker how he ended up going to Europe for a new surgical procedure, which involved drilling holes in his head. I think he found relief for a while, but it was not permanent.

I could not do justice to his work trying to describe it, you should go to the link on his name and check out some photos. I remember seeing the Tension Rod Table at the Friedman Gallery and was blown away.

Next it was off to the New York Museum of Design for a show on the works of Ray and Charles Eames. I was a little dissapointed with this show as I found it kind of lacking. There were all the furniture designs we all know, but I didn’t see much I didn’t know about. I guess the most surprising part was how crude some of the materials they used were. But I guess they were the first to work with some of these materials and use them in a furniture application.

Next it was to the Guggenheim, the lovely spiral museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We were there to see a Francesco Clemente show.

This guys work is amazing and I have been a fan a long time. He works mostly in water colors. Very wet, loose water colors, but at the same time with very fine lines. Click on his name above to see works.

He was born in Italy in 1952 and has homes all over the world. The audio tour we took talked about how each place he has a home, Rome, Madras and New York impact his work, each in a unique way. I learned of him from these small Indian prayer books he help publish. His work on paper, mostly watercolor and pastel are his most popular, although he works in other mediums.

The works we saw were very surreal and dreamlike. We both really enjoyed this show and it was also our first visit to the Guggenheim.

Then we got on a plane and went home.