Just for Ekua! :P

Its a blurry pic taken in my hotel room under some poor lighting :P but here is one part of Ekua's portrait in Daffodils!

For a long while something seemed off with the piece; and I wasn't exactly sure to what it was that I had a problem with until recently this week! It was the perfect square shape that wasn't working for me. It felt unbalanced and thus made the composition feel too tight and inorganic.

So today, in an effort to fix the problem, I took a little trip to local Home Depot and purchased another piece of wood. One of the employees then cut off a 10 inch wide section for me. As soon as I returned to my hotel room I placed the new unprimed wooden piece next to the larger piece on the left side.. Instantly the composition opened up and the portrait began to breathe!

I plan to continue a similar image of the daffodils as seen on the far right. More daffodils will be drawn in the center and later color will be added in thin washes.. I envision a combination acrylic washes with the use of color pencils and ink to create the sensation of a colorful sketch. Parts of the image, such as the drawing of Ekua herself, will remain colorless to bring focus to her as the subject and the beauty of simple pencil mark making.

Milk Jug Building...

I have been working on some overnight runs in MA this week. Every day when I drive back to my hotel I pass this odd shaped building in Hwy 146. Its closed and abandoned so you know that I have to pull over and explore it! :P I couldn't get inside as the door was locked. I saw another building like it while driving to the delivery site that was still in operation.. Its a business of some sort. I'm thinking possibly a breakfast cafe. Either way its still a cool building... I just wish the background was more interesting

Untitled...

Lots of work needs to be done with this... More of the "child" flowers will be added and maybe even collaged on.. more detail in the hair, the sweater needs to be filled in and richer shadows....

The viewers have chosen!

My mother woke me up about 30 minutes ago wanting to know if she should open a letter that came in the mail today from the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO. My piece "No Child Left..." was exhibited there a few months ago. I told yes, only since she seem to think that it was important enough to call me. I'm afraid to say it, but I would have probably thrown the letter away assuming it was a news letter that wouldn't have anything pertaining to me..

GOSH I am lucky that I didn't follow my normal thought processing!!!

The letter turn out to have a check for $100 and a statement explaining that MY piece won the Viewers Choice Award!!! My first Artist award! It became my goal this spring to win an award any award and I finally did it!!

Though I haven't sold anything, besides the one Brazil photograph, I still feel very fortunate and thankful for how good my art career has been this year. This has been my strongest year in the arts and it can only get better if I keep putting my best out there!

Passing Strangers Reception

The opening reception went very well!!

I was still feeling sick and thought that I wouldn't make it through the whole night, but somehow I managed and still had a great time in my new red shoes!! :P:P

The crowd was decent. Not too many people in the first half, but more individuals came in for a visit thanks to the gallant efforts of ArtWork's curator Beverly. She really worked the gallery crowd across the street for me. Encouraging people to come over and have a look see. I don't think the night would have been as successful without her assistance!

The highlight of the night for me, besides the positive feedback from the patrons, was someone recognizing my name and artwork from previous shows!! For me THAT was a real sign of success. It felt good and showed me how far along I have come with my work!

I feel inspired to keep pushing! :P

I also took a moment to visit the Gallery 125 across the street. Since the artists and patrons of the gallery were coming across to see my work I thought it best to do the same for them! the show was cool. I like some work better than others. There was a few photographs and a painting that really caught my eye in the right side of the gallery. I had a piece exhibited in the previous show last month at the Gallery 125 and I am really sorry that I had missed the chance to see it displayed. The gallery 125 is a nice space and I wished that I had visited it more often in the past.

Passing Strangers At the Cafe Ole!

Spent the afternoon hanging "Passing Strangers" with my father. I think the show looks pretty darn good. One of the regular customers even came up to me and said in hush tones that it was one of the better shows he has seen hung on the Cafe walls!

Cafe Ole

126 South Warren Street

Trenton, NJ

Little house in IA

I'm in Algona, IA. I have been here fore a few days, tortured with lovely clear blue skies and was unable to go out and explore because of work. The truck stop is filled with trucks and their Wind Turbine parts, and the delivery site is slowly allowing everyone to unload. All this delay because of the crap weather from last week. Farm fields are extra soft and the crewmen can only do so much in a day. Since we have to wait until it is 100% sure that we are not delivering I can't roam too from the truck stop.

Sigh....

Fortunately today I was able to break free and drive about 15 miles or so East from Algona and venture into another house!

The house was amongst overgrown weeds and inside were several pieces of farm related equipment such as tractor tires and metal barrels.. The roof in the back of the house had collapsed in and the room was filled with earthy organic material. Windows were broken and the front door was left wide open.

I gingerly stepped in and carefully explored the first floor. There was a second level and I was brave enough to venture about four steps up before I thought better of it and quickly returned to the base level. I am NOT brave enough to explore an unstable second level without someone around to help.. Not yet at least. :P

Mason City, IA

Just a few images I took while walking around the downtown area of Mason City, IA.

Back in Iowa

We stopped in Algona, IA yesterday with plenty of daylight hours available for me to go off an explore a little old farm house about an hour away. I saw it while we were driving to our destination. The composition of the property was so enchanting I knew I had to rush back and explore the premise with my camera!

This wasn't a completely abandoned property, though the house is far from being used by anyone! While looking around the house itself I cam across several bee hives and metal barrels used to help smoke the bees for honey collection. I was lucky that it was a cool October day otherwise I might have pissed off some angry bees!! :P

The house itself was very small! Not much was left behind from previous occupants except for a twin size bed in the tiny front bedroom and a kitchen sink attached to the frame of a window. There was no going inside! the floor was obviously to fragile!

I was actually worried that I would be caught snooping around this house. It was located off a busy Hwy and a farmhouse was located not to far from the place. I wasn't sure if they owned the bee hives or not..

Though the light wasn't so bad at certain angles, it could have been better. A Midday sun would have been better for photographing the tiny bedroom in the front. In fact the hole front side of the building was in the shadow because of a late afternoon light source.

Wandering Kansas

Again I am in KS with tons of extra time to kill! So I figured that I could just drive around and look for "new" Old houses to explore. I did find two decrepit buildings, but they lacked in interest compared to previous buildings.

The first one (pictured below) kinda scared me a bit. The front was filled with large buzzing flies and inside the main room was a small dead bird hanging from a wire. This is NOT the first time I came across a dead bird inside an abandoned Kansas house. I'm beginning to think that there is some strange cultish activity going on in the Sunflower State.......

I also didn't enter the building because the inside looked unsteady to me. I make it a rule not to damage, touch or move anything when I explore decaying homes. Partly out of respect and partly out of not wanting to leave any evidence of my presence to the current owners of the property.

The second building that I found may not actually have been abandoned. It caught my attention because it was brightly colored with green and pink walls. Most of the property around the building was mowed and there were plenty of cement bricks laying around. It looked like the house may have been recently under renovation but the project was put on hold or something. I did walk up to the where a door would have hung and looked inside. the place was a mess but I could see from an odd angle that there was a telescope and a printer still there. Also I think I may have hear what sounded like a TV around the corner. The sound was faint so I am not really positive if I actually heard it or not. Surely if there was anyone there they could have heard me walking up to the door. I wasn't exactly quiet as a mouse with my feet stomping through the overgrown weeds. I thought it best to walk away toward my car and head out. Don't know how someone, if there was anything there, would react to my snooping around.

Post Cards and Statements!

Picked up my postcards for the Passing Strangers exhibit this November.. They look good for what I paid for them.. I couldn't afford the high quality cards that the Trinity Gallery paid for for my last show but I am happy with what I got from Staples..

Its not a real gallery that I am showing my work at this time. The Cafe Ole is a cafe chain in Downtown Trenton. The owner has wall space available and allows a different artist to present his or her work each month. The artist is responsible for everything from hanging to promoting the show. A lot of work but the pay off is that there is no commission to pay if a piece sells.

The statement:

My original intention was to express an innate desire to capture my subjects as I had originally found them. To present my viewers with images depicting unknown individuals who had evoked my artistic curiosity by seizing both my attention and imagination during my travels.

However, after reviewing my images for the umpteenth time, it occurred to me that I wasn’t actually photographing these wonderful individuals solely for their unique character and mystery as I originally thought or believed. I was, in fact, documenting myself.

The formation of an identity is a life long process and it is through these fleeting moments with complete strangers that I am able to see more clearly the complexity of my own identity both culturally and artistically. The individuals who I had chosen to capture with my camera are those who, in one way or another, reflected elements of my own uncharted and developing self. For me they represent my undiluted curiosity of the world around me, a gambit of emotions often felt at once and a constantly developing perspective. I see myself in Passing Strangers

Passing Strangers

I finally finally finally finished my artist statement for my show this November.

Why does it take me so long to write a few sentences about why I make the art I make??? I'm beginning to accept that words are not my creative medium. I can go on for ever talking/writing about the most random topics, but when it is time to focus on a subject my mind freezes up and all the wonderful ideas that came out so organically before is dammed up in some dark closet at that back of my mind! I envy those who talents lie with language.. i wish I could dance as gracefully with words as those around me do.

After a month of battling writers block with constant revisions I managed to finally find a focus and in the process was able to send everything in on time to the gallery director. :P

The show is titled Passing Strangers.

Its an exhibition of portraits that I had taken during my travels. Through these encounters with these complete strangers I can see or better understand aspects of my own identity. They reflect, for me, emotions I was feeling or they help me to better understand and define my own individual culture. We tend to see ourselves through our views of others.

Juke Joint Bartender (2008)

Opening reception is:

Friday, November 13 at 6pm.

Cafe Ole

126 S. Warren St.

Trenton, NJ