Glenn Wolff

Its hard to know what to say when a good friend leaves this world. A painter named Charly Hansen did around five tonight. He knew he was leaving too soon but he had lived with a velocity of artfulness and gentle kindness that few of us will ever attain, and truth be told, he was fine with the timetable. Those of us whose lives he touched are mild basket cases, even though we know we’re all right behind him.

Charly was ominpresent on our art scene- doing his own work, mentoring fledgling arts groups, doing sidewalk art, spontaneous on stage paintings during jazz concerts, community radio essays, public access TV- My defining encouter with him was when he asked me to row to the middle of Davis Lake in the rain and and play his upright bass as he videotaped from shore.

Skip ahead to a few weeks ago. I had a huge commission- three paintings, the largest was to be 5 x 9. I bought what I thought were the best canvas stretchers I could find. They were certainly the most expensive, from, yes, I’ll say it- Utrect. They sucked actually. When I sized the canvas the 5 x 9 buckled like an umbrella in a hurricane. I called Charly for advice and we made a date for him to help me fix the stretchers.

Charly knew he had a very short time but offered anyway. Then he took a dip and went into the hospital. I went to see him and the first thing he did was apologize for wussing out on our date. I told him he had bigger things to worry about and left it at that.

A week or so later, much to my surprise, he called and said “I’m out. I feel great. Let’s do it.”

Over the course of a delightful afternoon we built a new stretcher from scratch and it was perfect. (Well it bowed a sixteenth of an inch in the middle but when the canvas was re-sized it pulled right in line.) As we finished Charly said, “Glenn, I allow myself a sip of vodka each afternoon about this time.”

A few weeks later, still running full tilt, he came by my studio and gave his approval to the painting. My wife and I went off to Toronto to a daughter’s ballet recital and all the while I kept in touch with Charly giving him updates.

I spoke to him last week before we left town again and he confessed that he had lost weight and becuase of that had had to pass on a chemo treatment. Still there was a light in his voice and I told him I’d check in when I got back home.

When we got back I found out that Charly had gone into hospice in his home, still holding court, as I understood it, to adoring friends, artists, and neighbors.

Finally it came down to just family, though the family continued to read him emails. I wrote this-

“Charly,

People think I’m a generous guy, but you are off the charts. You’ve made it an art form, you bastard! Thank you for your presence in my life, and for saving my ass by building my canvas stretcher a few weeks back, and then showing me the finer points of sipping vodka, when all along you could have been spending that precious time on your own canvas, sipping vodka.

Every time I start to descend into self-pity I will think of you Charly and bitchslap myself back into reality.”

To Charly.

Yesterday started in a fog, literally, with a light rain. The roads handn’t gotten that memo yet and were still icy and schools were going from 2 hour delays to full cancellations. Jeff Smith, editor of Traverse Magazine, and I had set 8:30 as the time to meet at my studio and take a walk along the east side of Boardman Lake and, funky as it seemed, neither one of us wanted to bail.

I’m glad we didn’t. The walk was short but a pefect moody, murky, Michigan morning. We made a short loop along a bluff overlooking the lake, down slick leaves to the dripping shore, past a nice installation/camp of broken plastic chairs, fire pit, and tiny American flag.

Back on the bluff I did a quick sketch (the rain waterlogged the sketchbook about the time my fingers said enough) looking down on the lake at fox tracks on the ice and the “v” ripple of a duck in the still water.

Back in the studio I decided to try a piece using a very beat plywood “frame” that I’d found on a walk a few months back. I had filled the center with yardsticks the day before.

I let it sit over dinner and came back after, working ’til about 10.
It got a very positive coffee critique from my wife this morning.

A few months ago I peeked into the window of the Creole Gallery in Lansing, Michigan’s Old Town district.

Meegan Holland booked the Neptune Quartet to do a concert there based on the kind recommendation of our friend Seamus Shinners. One thing led to another and when gallery owner Robert Busby saw samples of my artwork he offered me a show as well.

But back to the walls. Peering into the space I couldn’t see much…
but I could make out the walls and I was hooked. There is a butterscotch gnarlyness to them thats down right mouth watering in a painterly kind of way. I delivered the work for the show last night and even as gallery owner Robert Buzby and I leaned the work again the walls I felt like the pieces were fitting/melting right in.

In fact I feel like the walls, frames, and paintings will collaborate equally.

After the art drop I was a guest on Meegan Holland’s City Pulse radio show on MSU’s Impact 89 FM station. Hey, I’m a shy guy but Meegan made if very easy to talk about a wide spectrum of topics including art, family, illustration, illutration of meat products, illustration of meat hunters, and Neptune Quartet’s upcoming Jan. 21 concert at the Creole. After that- tapas and vino with band mate Cris and his wife Carol made for the closing of a great art road trip.

Well, yes, there was the drive back; but even on a gray cold and snowy day the 127, 10, 115 stretch has a certain flatland charm.

I have a show coming up next week at the Creole Gallery in Lansing. One of the owners was writing a press release and asked if I had a title for the show. I pondered for the afternoon and when I took inventory of my subject matter: fish adorned with constellations swimming upstream, insects flying over Bizantine marshes, flocks of picnic tables floating over midwestern farmland, chine-collé linocuts of Cranes and women printed on maps, it occurred to me that we should call the show “Migrations.”
This pastel and acrylic is just finished.
“Migration”

Getting back to more art, less meaty topics: These are sketches of the nesting eagles on Pearl Lake, done in 2002 as artist-in-residence for the Wings of Wonder program at Platte River Elementary. Filed away in my sketchbook for a long time they just became the starting point for “Pearl” the new painting on my home page.

Ok. I thought my own blog would be great a year ago. Then there was the specter of filling it. I started out meaning well, and hope to do better. In the mean time my buddy Jerry Dennis is just starting one as guest speaker at The Great Lakes Town Hall. Its quite nice and should be fun to check out as the week progresses:

http://www.greatlakestownhall.org/opinion/guest.php?forumid=3&topicid=75

© Glenn Wolff
acrylic on wood
12.5″ x 36.5″

© Glenn Wolff
acrylic on wood
29″ x 57″

I’m in DC for Thanksgiving with my daughter and brother. Finished these pieces over last weekend.

Work in progress
© Glenn Wolff
acrylic on wood 36″ x 12″

On the drawing table today-

The question is: can I add anything to this object and make it something?

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