Month: January 2013

The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami celebrated its 35th anniversary the evening of Saturday, November 3, 2012, with the inaugural All About Art Fine Art Fundraising Auction. The event, held in the grand galleries at the Museum and hosted by Co-Chairs Patricia & Phillip Frost and FIU President Mark Rosenberg and his wife Rosalie, featured art works donated by 78 acclaimed artists, was attended by over 350 art enthusiasts, and raised more than $200,000 in support of future Museum activities and programs.

After my partner Andrew Reach was invited to exhibit his art in a solo exhibition (Full Circle) as one of the inaugural opening exhibitions of the new world class building, the Frost acquired two works from the exhibition to be part of it’s permanent collection. This was so meaningful to Andrew, because before his reinvention from architect to artist, the Frost Art Museum was his last building in the role of project Architect at HOK alongside Yann Weymouth (The Louvre with I.M. Pei, The Dali Museum in Tampa). Since then a third work has been acquired. So when the call went out from the director, Carol Damian, asking artists in the permanent collection if they could donate a work of art to be auctioned off for this fundraiser, Andrew and I did not hesitate and Andrew created a new work of art specifically for the event titled “Middle of the Night in a Digital Dream”.

“Middle of the Night in A Digital Dream” by Andrew Reach

Michael Hughes, Frost Art Museum’s Director of Development, happily informed Andrew that at the auction there was much interest in his work with multiple bids and ultimately went to a prominent art collector in Miami  who is also on the Board of Trustees at the Miami Art Museum

Click here to see previous post with photographs of the event.

Andrew  and I couldn’t attend the auction because he is unable to travel and mostly home-bound from the constant pain he endures from his spine disease. Their have been problems now with his walking due to the pain and he’s  not able to stand very long. The pain has gone also to his legs. He can only sit for a very short time and really can not be up for more than a couple of hours. Andrew’s body is allergic to narcotics, so he can’t take the heavy duty pain medications prescribed to deal with his amount of pain. The rods are the length of his back are now pressing in the middle. In a sense they are trying to push out of the back. The pain is unthinkable. They’re trying everything not to have a third surgery to shave the rods down. His body has taken  much abuse. The pain in the neck is so severe, he now suffers also from violent headaches. The body will just not hold him up. Even being in bed does not stop the brutal pain. When he rests from the pain he wears a CPAP mask because he developed sleep apnia after his surgeries from when they pulled his spine back. It’s another level of constriction and isolation. Only his dreams and his art take him to a place where he can move from all his pain and find a moment of peace.  Along with our many dogs and  cats and our love, we endure. We have been together 32 years. We survive not by the year or month or day but by the  hour. God does not give us more then we can handle.

There are moments we wonder  what could have been with our lives had this not been the way. It is said life is as it is meant to be, not what we want it to be.  Its all about ones health. So we were not  able to attend. The Frost was kind to send him the catalog with all the artists and their work to be auctioned. Below is Andrew’s page from the catalog along with a list of all the other artists who donated work.

peace

Bruce Baumwoll

Andrew Reach

Luciana Abait 

Cecilia Arboleda

Tori Arpad-Cotta

Pablo Atchugarry

Lydia Azout

Waldo Balart

Rafael Barrios

Luisa Basnuevo

Carlos Betancourt 

Karin Borjas

Pip Brant 

Carol Brown

R.F. Buckley 

Humberto Calzada 

Ramon Carulla

Leo Castañeda

Othón Castañeda

Humberto Castro

Roberto Catasus

Robert Chambers

David Chang

Karina Chechik

Xavier Cortada

Jim Couper

Carlos Cruz-Diez

Edouard Duval Carrié

Juan Manuel Echavarría 

Sheila Elias

Carlos Estévez

Robert Farber

Nancy Friedemann

Luis Garcia-Nerey

Florencio Gelabert

Lynn Golob Gelfman

Francie Bishop Good

Israel Guevara

David Hayes

John Henry

Quisqueya Henríquez

Graham Hudson

Roberto Juarez

Clive King

Erika King

Jacek Kolasinkski

Sandra Liberman

Carlos Luna

Pepe Mar

Marcos Marin

Vincenzo Marsiglia

María Martinez-Cañas 

Enrique Martinez-Celaya 

Didier Masset

Leonel Matheu

Catalina Mejía

Luisa Mesa

Arnold Mesches

María Thereza Negreiros

Peggy Nolan

Miguel Padura

Betty Laird Perry

Cecilia Rivera

Rubem Robierb

Lydia Rubio

Tomás Sánchez

Carolina Sanllehi

Gretchen Scharnagl

Fernando Sucre

Ana Tiscornia

Mette Tommerup

Humberto Torres

Gladys Triana

Frances Trombly

Vanessa Trutschel

Annette Turrillo

Below is the only a small part of this book. I have made a decision with all my work dealing with my history from Warsaw Poland and the War. I shall not show any of the photos that have to deal with death or all the horrific images of what was done to the Jewish people and others. There is plenty of places one can go to see all of that. This blog is all about life. Most of these images and others are all that is left of all these souls and the life that was. By seeing their faces we remember them . One of the main thought from the old was who will say kaddish for all of us, Who will be left. For me by seeing them and looking in their eyes, We are remembering them and sending a prayer. The Baumwoll’s are from Warsaw Poland as far back as 1720 . Many of my family stay after my great grandfather left in 1910. Some of these faces could be them or any of your families that did not survive the war . Each face is a window in to all our lives. 

Like many of our families I have roots on the lower east side and Hester Street. My mothers family came to america in the 1880’s The Schulkin’s and they lived in this area. My father family came The Baumwoll’s  and lived by the 92 street Y in 1910. When I was a boy my father took me to Henry Street and I want to  be  on the stage like Fanny Brice. I have many fond memories of these areas.