Stubborn facts

Title: “Stubborn Facts of History Linger”

The title is taken from The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein’s book, in which he thoroughly argues that “African Americans were unconstitutionally denied the means and right to integration in middle-class neighborhoods, and because this denial was state-sponsored, the nation is obligated to remedy it.”

But…

The words in my title are not Rothstein’s. They come from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in a 1992 case addressing school segregation. Kennedy disagreed with Rothstein in calling for a government remedy to a history of government policies. He dismissed a causal connection between state actions and segregation. In 2007, Chief Justice Roberts would echo Kennedy’s words. To them, “wrongs committed by the state have little causal link to the segregation we see around us.”

I chose Kennedy's words because they express the view of those in power who attempt to rectify the situation, but choose not to. The “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” graffiti on the green wall speaks to that notion.

Picnic With Ghosts

This piece, “Empty”, was painted for the Kingston Gallery show: “Picnic With Ghosts.” August 2025

In constructing the piece, I merged a few concepts related to the theme “Picnic with Ghosts.” First, I was inspired by the oddity of the pandemic in the city when the typically relentlessly bustling streets were suddenly and eerily vacant. Second, I was inspired by that personal loss, the absence of a particular person from this world whom you would no longer spot in a crowd or glimpse across the avenue except as mistaken identity, illusion, or ghost. 

Additionally, I pondered the depiction and definition of the “ghosts”. Were the ghosts the ones no longer with us or the ones trudging through their days? In this painting, a lone gold-tinted woman crosses the street amidst many dark, semi-transparent figures. Is she the one beyond this world or the one firmly in it? Are the streets she walks empty or full? 

My sister lived in New York City for much of the decade that we did. When my oldest son was a baby, she watched him every Monday and they’d explore the city. She was always out and about, not secluded in a small apartment. And sometimes, at surprising times, we might catch sight of her on the city streets. In my memory, she’s beneath a ray of sun, even if not everyone else on the block is. She died in 2023 from a glioblastoma. I want to catch sight of her crossing an intersection one more time. 

Brimley Line & Old School Nostalgia

Wilford Brimley was 50 years, 9 months, and 6 days old when Cocoon hit the theaters on June 21, 1985. When I hit my personal “Brimley Line” this past summer, nostalgia did not plow me over like a runaway train, but it did reach out its tentacles.

I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, played high school and college lacrosse in the 90’s. For most of my career, lacrosse helmets were paneled, and you used shoelaces in the back to tighten or loosen the fit. Riddel had attempted to modernize the helmet with a product that looked like a batting helmet but it seems my high school team was the only poor saps who had to wear them. The experiment lasted a season and then we shoved them off on the JV team. The next year, I slipped back into my trusty old Bacharach 33LH. It fit like a broken-in ball cap (and was just slightly more protective). A week after high school graduation, I got popped in a summer league game, the chin strap buckles left the scene immediately, the double face mask pad (that’s right) exploded into my face, and my front teeth punctured my upper lip and got a bit stuck there as blood poured down my chin. As my assistant high school coach beckoned someone to drive me to the hospital, he added, “You’ll sport a mustache the rest of your life now.” And I wondered briefly what deformity his mustache covered.

The artist back in 1992 wearing his beloved Bacharach against the Vestal Golden Bears after the Riddell debacle of 1991. Photo: Dave Grewe, The Ithaca Journal

When I got to college, safety regulations replaced the flimsy but super-cool old Bacharachs with these Sport Helmets that weighed a ton. They were technically still paneled buckets, but the era was one. Change was coming. The classic lax bucket was sent to the dustbin.

But, ahhh, nostalgia.

They were so damn cool.

I have no reason to wear one again, to slide the thin, yellowed, sweat-stained padding over my head, or to tilt the mask down. But I can put it on a cap, a t-shirt, or a poster.

MERCH

Third party merchandise. Lacrosse, old school, architectural

PICNIC WITH GHOSTS

As you enter the Kingston Gallery in the SoWa Arts District of Boston for the August show (“Picnic with Ghosts” - a show by the Associate members of the gallery), my painting “Empty” looms before you.

In constructing the piece, I merged a few concepts related to the theme “Picnic with Ghosts.” First, I was inspired by the oddity of the pandemic in the city when the typically relentlessly bustling streets were suddenly and eerily vacant. Second, I was inspired by that personal loss, the absence of a particular person from this world whom you would no longer spot in a crowd or glimpse across the avenue except as mistaken identity, illusion, or ghost. 

Additionally, I pondered the depiction and definition of the “ghosts”. Were the ghosts the ones no longer with us or the ones trudging through their days? In this painting, a lone gold-tinted woman crosses the street amidst many dark, semi-transparent figures. Is she the one beyond this world or the one firmly in it? Are the streets she walks empty or full? 

My sister lived in New York City for much of the decade that we did. When my oldest son was a baby, she watched him every Monday and they’d explore the city. She was always out and about, not secluded in a small apartment. And sometimes, at surprising times, we might catch sight of her on the city streets. In my memory, she’s beneath a ray of sun, even if not everyone else on the block is. She died in 2023 from a glioblastoma. I want to catch sight of her crossing an intersection one more time. 

Queensboro Bridge

Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. - Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

It’s a one bedroom one bath apartment. But there’s a dining alcove as you enter. A junior 4 in the language of New York City apartments. 

In a recurring dream we discover new space in the apartment. Sometimes it is hidden--behind a false wall, through a passage in the closet. Sometimes it seems perfectly logical that we’d just never walked down this bright hallway before and opened the doors to its light and airy bedrooms. 

But outside the apartment windows is the city.

A few blocks away the great cantilever of the Queensboro Bridge spans the East River and fills our imagination.

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STORE

Putnam CT!

I’m thrilled to have several pieces at the Silver Circle gallery in downtown Putnam. www.silvercirclegallery.com

Please go visit the cool, quaint, old mill town in eastern Connecticut and check it out.

If you’d wish to purchase through me, just email :jim@jimfenzel.com and we’ll set that up!

Bright colors

It had been decades since I read Charles Dickens’s “Hard Times”, and it was probably a forced read at the time.

There’s a line I ‘sort-of’ remembered, but looked it up to quote it: “It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it…” (There’s more that feels politically incorrect now in an antiquated manner–comparing the town of Coketown to the “painted face of a savage”, but what I was drawn to was the ‘brick that would have been red.”)

I paint urban scenes, spots of time, narrative little clips in the midst of the city’s bustle and din. I use a bright acrylic palette and colors that would not render in a photograph of a scene I’m painting. The sunlight brightens the asphalt to a yellow hue, the buildings cast purple shadows, the cantilevered span of the Queensboro Bridge is more orange than the actual buff color of “Queensborough Tan.”

It’s a city of bright colors, or colors that would have been bright if the smoke, congestion, grime, neglect, had allowed it.

It’s the color you experience if not the one your eyes see.