Wash Away

Wash away your sins
In the back of a bar
Men's room sink
Called Sharlene's
Off the avenue
A woman stands
With a gold name tag
Reading 'Embellishment'
A couple speaks
Of arugula and green beans
Every mirror reflects
Something honest
And something different
It's your father's birthday
Four fans spin
In opposing unison

Neon Yellow Glow

The neon yellow glow of her skirt beamed through like the morning sunrise in an eastern room. Out shining her beauty it could not be contained. It spilled out all over the stainless subway walls and constellation rubber floors. The world blind to it but one woman. Clad in black and white with brown fringe bag, she sees me. Seen seeing. A witness. A man gives his testimony blessing and thanking all and Jesus. The words fall short under the rumble of steel tracks and rolling wheels painted out by a neon yellow glow.

Rest Old Man

Rest old man, your tired eyes
Your dull pencil in Sudoku
Fire red skin from blazing sun
The days are getting shorter
Yet still just as long
Night is coming
Tomorrow is another day
Many are your fathers
Many are your sons
The past is in your face
Now’s the time
Until your time
They are special


See young man
Wise in years
A fool in years
Whiskey was my wish key
Many are your mothers
Many are your daughters
The present is in your eyes
Dawn will soon come
Your time is now
Sink your well well
Drink deep from the earth
Savor all fruits
You will come to know

NYC 8-22

A young Chinese boy is mesmerized by an old Jewish man's whispering mouth, the words from his holy book. A beautiful woman rests her eyes behind sunglasses. A little girl plays with her father's face while in his arms. That's New York. It's good to be here.

Studio Notes: Artist Statement: 2013

My current work explores the ideals, pitfalls and mythological aspects of “The American Dream.” I aim to use my historical perspective in coming of age with the internet to apply and comment on the unraveling results of 20th century developments in American politics, commerce and social life. My process is appropriation-based wherein I collect and archive digital and traditional print media to generate collage work in physical and digital formats. The source images and texts are recycled, filtered and re-constructed into narratives and given new contextual frameworks and considerations. This body of work is the result of manipulated imagery that is magnified and enlarged into paintings and drawings. The labor process provides time and meditative freedom to engage the content. The new images attempt to use humor and surrealist devices to internalize the effects of middle-late capitalism and its role in what we believe our individual dreams should or should not contain. I view the process as a playful means of repossessing large pervasive issues for the self.

Produce Performance

Produce Performance


Mangoes on
my heater
don’t seem to like it
though I thought
they’d miss
the tropics.

Ground Game

Ground Game

I took the pain
in my neck
out the door
down the street
into a deli
where
pickle relish
dwelled,
gourmet mustards
thrived,
and my pain
went to my wallet.

Inter-Office Mail

Inter-Office Mail

Take that envelope
back upstairs.
Does the coffee machine
gurgle and spit the names
of those scribbled out?
Did former employees
drinking free
half & half cups
reading obscure names
think they were next?
What happens
when there’s no more room?

Bullfrogs In Winter

Bullfrogs In Winter

That day when
a Confederate soldier
would serve in
the Union army
is the day he’d shoot
his musketeer
off a bullfrog
through a window
in winter.

Things happen.

Humble Cottage

For A & N

Humble Cottage

You took me by surprise
Though you shouldn’t have
Clad in warm cedar shakes
Your modern white belly soothed me
Antique America met anew

Riding high set above
Long Island Sound
North Fork rocky beaches
Soft saltwater cool
Full of good taste and grace


Fresh cut grass and lush trees
Supersweet Corn and Rosé
You were in my dreams
Books upon books and smiles
We laughed and were merry

Humble Cottage you
Be less humble
You home full of love
Happy ghost
Till then

An Unnatural Death

7.14.11.NYC

An Unnatural Death

America and all of Brooklyn is a flood in tears over the body of the small boy Leiby Kletzky. Straight from a gory novel, he was abducted and butchered by a man Aron Levi. The missing persons report fliers that filled my neighborhood and all of New York City were taped nailed and posted everywhere. They now stand as haunting ghosts in an infinitely incomprehensible nightmarish tragedy gone terribly real. Alien to the experience of the average person of decency and compassion this is no act of a human being, a monster they say. They ask, "Why?", but there are no real answers to be found but the real horror of it all which is that the man is human and he is one of us. This sends chills to the bone as we are confronted with ourselves, that piece of human nature we often keep beneath the surface buried below in the murky depths. I am sadly reminded in these cases that our race is capable of absolute love, beauty, high art and charity and we are also capable of worse as if to balance a scale we can sink to the darkest levels and still be all too human. I cry for the boy Leiby Kletzky and his family. I cry for the man Aron Levi and I cry for all of humanity.

Stealing Home Base in Hanoi: Baseball Joey

Like some strange old kid with a grey beard he rode the train on Sundays to Atlantic Avenue but unlike any kid he went to pick up his medications. His mind was never quite right since Vietnam. Joey lived in the projects off Ave. W for the past thirty-five years. His hearing was partially blown during a V.C. grenade attack while out on patrol. As Joey spoke his voice had a tendency to rise to alarming levels but he was harmless. He had a real bad form of P.T.S.D., which gave him a jittery nervous twitch. He rubbed his head a lot and looked at the floor after saying something. He was completely calm and stable most of the time. Through his face you knew that he along with a generation of fellas got left behind in those jungles holding onto a whole world of shit. His smile was warm but it never really could hide the scars of war.
He loved talking baseball. Since he had come back home to Brooklyn so many years ago it was the last thing for him that made any sense in America anymore. He held on so tightly to that piece of his youth. It gave him something to focus on and it was its own sort of therapy. He could watch game after game season after season. He organized stats and kept records tracking teams and player careers. He was a walking talking functionally dysfunctional library of baseball. Through the years of doing this he had regained some piece of his humanity. It’s how he was able to connect with people. It eased his mind and kept the nightmares away. It brought a smile to his face and when he got to talk about a game or a player there was no stopping him. His excitement couldn’t be contained and some people got nervous over his explosive joys. But it was only Joey it was only baseball. It was his salvation, the saving grace for an old man who had found heaven and hell on Earth.

Brooklyn Summer

6.7.2011.NYC
It all took place in his backyard, everything. When the sun came back breaking the long cold silence of winter effectually ending our suffering it was finally time for good times and grand times. This certainly included the barbecue. Aaron’s place had unofficially become the hang spot, a base for multiple operations and happenings for the Fort Green patriots and for those willing to make a trek up the hill. Most of the regulars seem to live a step or two away and walk here. Foot power is New York’s real steam, its real driving engine.
We’ve done everything from survive a rapture to watch movies and basketball projected onto a queen sized sheet stretched like hide on a fence. We’ve grilled all sorts of edible goodness and tipped back everything drinkable. The sun shines down brightly from above in the early hours of summer and the yard, part urban garden, shed, patio, is a lovely site to see. It is inviting without any pretension. The signature celebrated earthiness of the space is set off by the massive walls of the Presbyterian Church next door. The old brick walls and stained glass windows cast long dark shadows in the early afternoon. With Aaron’s building working in tandem with the holy, it sets an interesting scene, reminiscent of Shawshank Redemption. We could however not be further from prison while we bask in the warm glows of grilled corn and freedom.
Beer bottles and ash trays are their own flowers in this tiny microcosm in Brooklyn. There again are the actual flowers and tall grasses. The new additions to this Eden are the bamboo shoots that we all watch grow and progress on their journey towards the sun. We watch them with the same attention and eagerness we give to the wings and burgers sizzling nearby. This has become an escape, our dreamland where we can relax and re-absorb life. I thank the Blacks for this haven. This is our new but familiar corner of the world.

Draw Me Airplanes

A kind old man from Guyana once told me this story in 2007. I paraphrased it from our conversation that afternoon.

I was a teacher back home for many years before I came here. I taught ages 8 to 14. One day a week, we would teach our students art. For one hour on Friday afternoon, 2-3 o’clock. You have to understand my conception of art was very different then, if for instance, I had a picture of an airplane I’d have the children draw it. The colors, lines and shapes. That was art.

So one day as I walked around they were working and drawing away. I remember seeing these bright colors and models of what this plane looked like. We were into the lesson by about 5 or 10 minutes when I went to the back row and I had this young man about 10 sitting quietly. His art book was closed, a pad of about 20 pages or so. I asked him, “Are you finished already?” he quietly replied, “Oh, yes Sir.” I asked him if I could see it. He opened his book. I looked at it, it was a blank page. I asked him, “Where is the airplane?” He silently pointed to the center of the page. I crouched down to look at what he was showing me and it was a small little v shaped mark. I asked him, “What is this?” He said, “The airplane took off.”

I stood there in amazement. It surprised me so much, this student was generally below average in our other subjects, but something really happened there that made me think, what a brilliant idea, the way in which he perceived the idea of the airplane. Later I took it to the Headmaster and he and I both agreed it was correct. It was the assignment, draw the airplane. Now, after working here for about 2 years and seeing art so new to me I remember that child’s drawing from time to time and I am reminded that art is not the picture of the airplane on the paper. It is the perception and internalization of the idea of the airplane in the mind of the artist and viewer. That is where the art is, in each of us.

Dearly Departed

Release: The Death of my Grandfather


I have been fortunate enough to achieve greater understanding of life through death. At the moments when perspective and solace are needed I have found some comfort through knowledge and wisdom. With the clarity offered only through time, I am reminded that we will and must confront the reality of our mortal natures at various moments throughout our lives. Sometimes these passages can be abrupt and painful and a deeply felt sense of treachery towards life can incite a violent bitterness while other times the loss of life seems akin to kindness, as though it were a merciful act of love upon one by a mysteriously divine grace.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to travel and meet with my mother at my Grandfather’s bedside in Arizona. The desert sun of late September still scorches the earth while the arid dry air burns the eyes. It was not a visit of pleasure but a pilgrimage. We made this trip not knowing what would happen. We were fortunate to eventually bring him home from the hospital and share precious conversations with him. We were lead to believe his life would outlast our previous expectations and were comforted in this new knowledge. Our times together were sparse and brief, my Mother and I spent a great deal of time alone together and with Grandmother. What did transpire in those conversations was of great importance for all of us and will be remembered dearly.

We left Arizona knowing things would get a little better before they got worse. In reality, it would actually be no more than a month before his transfiguration. Hours before his passing, I had a restless anxiety. I wrote to my mother to let her know I was thinking of her. My tension eventually gave way to an uneasy sleep. The morning of, during my commute on the subway, I happened upon one of many possible Jorge Luis Borges’ stories. This particular story was The Immortal. I had nearly finished it when my mother called me to tell me the grave news. I could not help but draw the comparison that man, though he wishes for the eternal, might indeed be more satisfied to live as we all do, briefly.

In the face of my dying Grandfather my senses were capable of directly confronting the eventuality of death but my language could not. I could not speak to my Grandfather as if he were dying though the reality was open and real. There was no need to speak about death while living, as there was still life to live. We had plenty of things to talk about and not talk about. We both could feel the silent waiting patience of death and chose not to discuss its presence. I think we rested knowing it was on its way and instead were comforted by each other while remembering the better days we had spent together.

My Grandfather William passed this October twelfth. The fruit of his labors and the Irish American surviving members of three descending generations walk among us. He lives on in living memories and will be missed.

10-20-10

Artist Statement: The Abstractions: 1.30.10

In regards to painting's numerous limitations and belittled status in current discourse, I will dismiss myself from judgment and continue the conversation.

Figurative and representational modes cannot on their own encapsulate the whole complexity of contemporary life. I utilize abstract languages to extend the dialogue towards these other ever expanding realities. It's a methodology in art that has existed in its maturity for more than a century. It is obvious that abstraction has taken it's own historical foothold in art but it continues to remain fresh in my thinking process because of its fluid capacity to mold itself to change. That is to say that it seems capable of keeping in step with time.

I took the task upon myself to develop an artistic approach that could be flirtatious while not referencing the body. I wanted to build a painting that could be stern and comedic while not being didactic or funny. I wanted to evoke the new worlds of motion graphics in static form, to maintain that spirit of visual movement in silent stillness. My works seek to be familiar by making slight reference to the world while also being unique singular events held on a shallow stage off Broadway.

The paintings concern themselves with several overarching ideas. They are organized on a formal basis utilizing geometric forms. I use many reductive shapes, boxes, and post and lintel junctions with other simple elements to construct my images to echo the framed rectangularity of the image. I construct my paintings with the illusion of shallow space. By layering images I develope the awareness of the third dimension. Utilizing over painting and under painting, the works never abandon the material nature of paint or its inherent object qualities. I allow paint to behave in a natural fashion where layering and textures are able accumulate in the process of working.

The vocabularies of elements that have been used are thought of as parts like those found in erector sets, legos or machines. These parts are tinkered with into the various apparatus constructions you see. I have a tremendous interest in engineers and their ability to take parts, tools and knowledge to develop and create functional things of value. The film projector is an item I find to be as interesting as filmaking itself. The projector if it were to cease its harmonious operation would leave us without the film performance, we would still have a film but no way to see it in its intended form thus technology acts as the second half of the art. I think of machines, engines, stock material, distribution, warehousing, manufacturing, and production when I paint, not always in this order. The ideas they generate help in translating my experiences into a painting language.

My compositions often play with or emphasize bilateral symmetry like that of a building façade. As in reference to most biological organisms, they are never quite perfect or exact; they give way to varying degrees of mutation. They mirror themselves and deviate all together. They are in the process of conversion or function. Often they can float un-tethered in space or can be anchored in delicate balance. My paintings find themselves at a tenuous moment, as information is spilling out or focused inward. They imply scientific origins but reveal no concrete datum. As cropped spaces from a larger scale world, my paintings imply the viewfinder or aperture. Unlike the traditional window view in historical art these attempt to ride a fine median between conventional space and modern flatness. These paintings use windows within windows to echo the computer interface. They attempt to be unplugged luminescent beacons of a new program immediately abandoned by software developers.

My palette often focuses on high key colors in an effort to compete with and compliment the every day experiences of advertising, objects, architecture, garments, etc. Gradients and broad sweeps of color can converge and diverge over super sweet day-glow hues in ways that fold space and insinuate dynamic range. Natural, soft, hard, and toxic colors spill out and over an empty terrain of storefront displays. I include graphic and pattern elements as a way of broadening the image reference pool to engulf cultural and popular motifs. These examples would include elements from street fashion and popular objects in our natural and synthetic environments, i.e. the ubiquitous faux animal pattern.

The Danimal exploits series refers my interest in the animal print, to utilize natural variety found in wildlife and the human exploitation of it. I find a pervasive reference to the animal kingdom on bed sheets, t-shirts, panties, purses, and overcoats. At once both meaningful and banal, the status of high and lowbrow consumer culture, the animal print has become a loaded symbol of luxury and the cheap exotic. The zebra, leopard, tiger, peacock, etc. all have come to symbolize desire and beauty. I imagine if tigers had lawyers would they collect royalties for the use of their stripes on pillows and coffee mugs? What if animal species could protest the copyright and trademark infringement over their respective brands? I continue the exploitation and abstracting of animal forms into a new value system. Authentic skins and furs continue to be held as valuable commodities in poaching markets, but the world at large has moved on towards the synthetic, towards the extrapolated marks of exotic beauty. I re-hunt these new abstracted animals across the broad American plains from Vegas showbiz glitz to the fashion glamor of 5th Avenue and fluorescent isles of Wal-Mart.

Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger: We Loved You

Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger: A True Story, No Kidding, I Mean Really.


It took me roughly ten years to pull myself together and return to this book and actually read it. It was assigned when I was a High School student and I never completed the damn thing for what ever reason. I’m not sure if I was too immature, too scared, or just plain lazy not to read it but I didn’t. As it turned out, I was more like Holden then I could have ever even imagined.

A week before my 26th birthday I decided to buy another copy of the famed book Catcher in the Rye. I picked up the edition at my favorite book shop in NYC with the original cover design loosely drawn depicting the books last scene, not the rainbow student edition. I think it was that bland cover that made me never want to pick it up; the minimal design never caught me when I was young and it still doesn’t. I wanted to finally come to terms with that one novel that kept resting in the back of my mind all those years and meet Holden Caulfield once and for all.

I was hooked from the first page. When I came to the book I had finally lived a little and been through the likes of Kerouac, Hemingway and even Steinbeck. Salinger’s character Holden and I became good friends in my mind, honestly. No kidding. I mean I really wanted to give old Jane a buzz. I did. The book was released in 1951 and here I am reading this in 2010 and I dig it like none other. I understand it. I get underneath it and Holden has got a hold on me like we see the world through the same eyes. When people say please, it depresses me too. It actually does.

The last scene of the book when Holden finally realizes his decision and enjoys the moment we both share in the revelation that is coming home. On my way back to Brooklyn after my long day at work and the gym I finished the book with that feeling you get when you are not too sad to let go but also excited for what will happen next even though you are only left in your own isolation.

I finished this wonderful story and I felt like I knew something intimate about its author. As I finished this story in silence J.D. Salinger was also slipping into his own. He would die that same day Wednesday January 27th of natural causes. He was 91.

I sit here now Thursday afternoon. My fiancé Katya sent me the news. I remain stunned that after a decade of keeping myself away from this powerful story, I finish the day he died. Full closure.

Immortality in art, it’s why we make it right?

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 26

Selections from: The Jazz Series: Spring 2005

In New York

When we're dancing
cheek to cheek,
ask if I love you
and make a funny face
You're here in my arms
heart of mine,
I want to be happy.
Just a lucky so and so,
stompin' at the Savoy
in summertime.
You go to my head,
But who cares?
It's alright with me
But now its my turn now
and it is a lovely day
today in New York

_____

Together Now

That sweet embraceable you
I'd dolphin dance in to a blues walk
like someone in love
like the old folks in summertime.
We can boogie-woogie
under old devil moon
only seven steps from heaven.

Just you, just me, and out
of no where, polka dots
and moon beams.
Let's watch what happens
Tangerine tenderly
my funny valentine.

_____

Perdido

We made Giant Steps
through autumn leaves
softly as in the morning sunrise
darn that dream
days of wine and roses
I jumped for joy night and day
when we fell from heaven
I still remember you
and quiet nights spent
on the sunny
side of the street

_____

Lady Day

As time goes by
In my solitude
I'll be seeing you
You were my thrill
My old flame
I'll cover the waterfront
Trav'lin' light
Until the real thing comes along
A dream of life
Say it with a kiss
That's all i ask of you
I'll never be the same
I'm funny that way
Carelessly
Foolin' my self
This is a fine romance

_____

To John

Bye-Bye Blackbird
And deal old Stockholm.
When the lazy bird
riding the blue train
locomotion awaits
the wise one
where crescent moons
and velvet sunsets
shine down on Avalon
west bound
til' Sunday,
remember your lady,
that promise of
a love supreme.