Published: February 22, 2009 12:20 am      

GENCO: Local artists and their work worth appreciating

Mary McKee didn’t retire from the City of Tonawanda Library. She just painted away.

Her work “Refreshing,” featuring a portrait of elephants from the Buffalo Zoo in a natural setting, is one of many on display at the Partners in Art Gallery next to Hodge Podge and the Pallette Café on Webster Street in North Tonawanda.

The gallery recently hosted the opening of its annual student show. I wrote a little about it last week but then got distracted. I’m not much on highbrow culture — for me, art has to be something to which I relate, and yet this show is perfect. You don’t have to be a sophisticate to understand the beauty of Penny Creasey’s simple portrait of trees and a field in “Sunday Afternoon.”

If I could make it four times larger, it would fit beautifully over our couch. The same goes for the simple grace of W.P. Rozicki’s “Wild and Free” giraffes.

Meanwhile, while I wasn’t as crazy about the style of Joan Horn’s “Bulletin Board,” the message is poignant. The painting includes a Sports Illustrated cover featuring an American hero, Arthur Ashe. Ashe’s “Days of Grace” remains one of my favorite autobiographies.

He shared his story of being the first black tennis professional and then contracting HIV from a blood transfusion. To be graceful and forgiving in the aftermath of such adversity and persecution reveals true character, to paraphrase Marv Levy.

To see the vibrant arts community on Webster Street is meaningful. There will always be different qualities of work and talent. The important thing is that artists enjoy creating and the rest of us enjoy admiring. I don’t know how to define good art, but I know it when I see it.

It also always strikes me that so many talented people are around – you can admire Kay Learned and Creasey’s art in the café any day, not just during a show. They are nice women who have much more to offer than simply being the proprietors of a small gift shop.

I have to also compliment the bathroom. That’s right – Partners in Art down the street initially had the nicest bathroom in North Tonawanda, but the bathroom at the back of the new gallery is even nicer.

Of course, an article about that experience on Webster Street is not complete without a mention of the most faithful newspaper delivery guy ever, Vince Padalino. Vince lives at 84 Sweeney St., rides his bike to deliver the paper and is generally a downtown fixture. Characters like Vince add to the true texture of a neighborhood. Seeing him handing out a free copy of the Tonawanda News, I was compelled to tip him. Some things you just have to do, even as a noted cheapskate.

It will be even more exciting when some of the planned projects are done downtown. What I’d really like to see is a small, independent bookstore/café as a complement to the art scene and the Paperback Swap and Shop. That’s a story for another day. At least I completed that column I intended to write last week before I got distracted by the disaster in my neighborhood.

Thanks for reading.

Word of the Week: Nostrum – quack medicine. The origin comes from the Latin word meaning “of us.” It was the response the hawker used when asked to divulge the contents of the medicine he was hawking.

LM Boyd of the Week: Remember the winter of 1977? I do. It was the last time there was snow on the ground in all 48 contiguous states simultaneously.

Contact Joe Genco at joegenco@gmail.com.