Zen machining
Mitch Cohen has an RIT textbook that
is three decades old, which makes it several years younger than everything else
in his studio.
“Most of this stuff is functional
dinosaurs,” Cohen says, as he hand-cranks a piece of
paper through a large metal contraption. This, he says almost lovingly, is a
“platen press.” The two-foot-tall wheels churn, and Cohen explains how images
used to be transferred to paper in the good old days.
For most people the thought of using
a non-spell check, non-motor equipped letter press is about as close to
practicing Zen as eating fried chicken, but for Cohen, the new director of the
Printing and Book Arts (PABA) Center at the GeneseeCenter for the Arts &
Education, the forgotten technique is “very soothing.”
“You sort of become one with the
machine when you’re hand-feeding on a machine like this,” he says.
Ironically, Cohen’s grasp of the
ancient trade makes him practically avant-garde in today’s world. People drawn
to the hand-hewn metal letters and pictures are often seeking solace from
kitsch computer fonts and graphics. “It’s big in California,”
Cohen says.
For the artistically disinclined —
a group to which Cohen pledges allegiance — printmaking can also provide a
creative vehicle for expression. “I like designing with type,” Cohen says.
“It’s my artistic outlet.” Not that he’s quitting his day job — yet. “Few
people make money in this. In terms of production this isn’t the way to go,” he
says.
It’s a backwards sales
pitch and a backwards art, really: upside down letters, sentences that read
right to left and inverted, barely discernable images.
“Of course, it’s all reversed,” Cohen
says. Oh, of course. I had forgotten.
Up, down, right, left, it’s all upturned like a dyslexic’s window into reality.
Or a child’s.Maybe both. And
somehow that’s cool.
The
PABACenter is the newest addition to the GeneseeCenter for the Arts & Education, 713 Monroe Avenue. For more information, including a class
schedule in the book arts, call 244-9312 or go to www.geneseearts.org.
— Sujata
Gupta
Moving on in
As the Johnson era, like the year, was drawing to a close,
Mayor-elect Bob Duffy was announcing his administrative team at almost daily
press conferences last week.
In: former RGS
Energy president Tom Richards, as corporation counsel; Charles Reaves, head of
the Metro-Center YMCA, as parks and recreation commissioner; Julio Vazquez,
president and CEO of the Ibero-American Action
League, as community development commissioner; WXXI television VP Gary Walker,
as communications director; Paul Holahan, currently Irondequoit public works commissioner, as environmental
services commissioner; RIT’s director of corporate
relations, Steven Schwab, as deputy chief of staff; and School Board president
Darryl Porter, as assistant to the mayor.
Switching
teams: Porter, and Johnson’s deputy mayor, Rick Hannon, who previously was
assistant to the mayor. Hannon’s joining the Rochester
school district, where he’ll be in charge of special projects, including
facilities modernization.
Home run: The
Richards appointment. Widely respected in the business and political community,
Richards must be taking this on purely as a public service. He obviously
doesn’t need the grief he’ll get as the city’s attorney. Nor does this position
carry the power of the job he once considered seeking: county executive.
Spots to watch: 1) The ferry corp’s board. Four of its current
members are leaving city government — and the ferry board: City Councilmember
Wade Norwood, Community Development Commissioner Linda Stango,
Corporation Counsel Linda Kingsley, and Environmental Services Commissioner Ed
Doherty. Since the mayor appoints some of the ferry board members, Duffy gets a
chance to exert his influence.
2) The School Board. Darryl Porter won re-election in
November, and he’ll start the new year serving the
first days of his new term on the board. But he’ll almost immediately head to
City Hall, and the School Board will appoint someone to fill his seat until a
special election in November. Penfield teacher Jeff Henley, who ran
unsuccessfully for the board in September’s Democratic Primary, is one of
several people under consideration for Porter’s seat.
Ferrying forward
Mayor-elect Bob Duffy persuaded City Council to wait until
he takes office to borrow $11.5 million
for the ferry. At its meeting last week, Council approved borrowing the
money, but made their action effective January 5. By then, Duffy and three new
CityCouncilmembers will
have been sworn in.
Duffy has said in the past that he’s a strong supporter of
the ferry. But he hasn’t said whether he supports borrowing the additional
money. He doesn’t have much time to decide. It’ll take 15 to 20 days for the
city to get the money, and several crucial deadlines are coming up.
The next debt payment on the ferry is due in mid-February,
for instance. The ferry corp’s trying to line up
marketing packages with Canadian tourism officials and with event promoters in
the Rochester area; most of them
are already wrapping up their budget for next year, and the city will have to
put up money to get their participation.
And the ferry corp has a critical
cash-flow problem. It’s out of money, but expenses continue, even though the
boat’s docked until March.
Water savers
Earlier this month, after four years of work, a monumental agreement protecting Great Lakes water from withdrawals and diversions
was signed with little fanfare.
The twin pacts, which together go by the unwieldy name the
Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact and Agreement, all
but prohibit taking water out of the watershed, and sharply limit water
diversions within the basin — for activities like irrigation, for example.
The Great Lakes contain about 20
percent of the world’s fresh water (including a hefty portion of Greater
Rochester’s public water supply), and all that water is increasingly attractive
to other states or other nations. In fact, in 1998 Canadian authorities briefly
gave a company the go-ahead to ship tankers of the water to Asia.
That permission was quickly rescinded, but fears of a similar event prompted
the governors of all eight Great Lakes states plus the
premiers of Ontario and Quebec
to band together and agree on limits. That resulted in a 2001 agreement known
as the Great Lakes Charter Annex.
Since then, the Council of Great Lakes Governors has been
working with everyone from environmental groups to farmers’ advocates to hammer
out the best way to implement that plan. The agreement they reached in
mid-December amounts to the fine print of the 2001 agreement.
Environmentalists are hailing the pacts as a landmark
victory in their fight to protect water in the basin. You can view the new
documents on the Council’s website:
http://www.cglg.org/projects/water/annex2001Implementing.asp.
For past coverage of the agreements from City Newspaper, check out these stories:
“Great Lakes, cold feet: Ontario backs off water deal”, December 1, 2004
“Water watch: striving to keep
the Great Lakes ours,”July 28, 2004
“Waste management: Fighting to save the Great Lakes
basin,”June 2, 2004.
This article appears in Dec 28, 2005 – Jan 3, 2006.
