Rocksprings Chrysanthemum

greeting the neighborhood on Dearing Ext. going east.

Hypothetical flower halfway to being theoretical flower

Left: Half-finished theoretical interpretation of real flower. Right: Hypothetical flower photoshopped onto garage door.

Painted today on the door of the Hotel Ezcobar, just behind Mt. Awesome on the crest of Waddell, the peak of one of Athens' proverbial 5 hills. Tomorrow i'll paint the orange.

Guitart 2

Finished this yesterday for a fund raiser at Monsignor Donovan Catholic School where my friend Rob McMaken teaches history. The strings will be put back on tomorrow, and it will be a real working instrument. Not like those fake ones you get at other charity fund raisers that don't play. This one will make your eyeballs and your fingers bleed.

Here's the info i got from the school about the event, RAM JAM "battle of the bands"...

The event takes place Saturday, May 22 on the soccer field at Monsignor Donovan Catholic High School. RAM JAM was created 3 years ago by 2 seniors who thought a battle of the bands would simply be fun to host and bring our school some community support. 9 bands competed the first year, 11 bands last year. The bands must be high school students. Great prizes are awarded... including a spot on stage at Athfest. Local musicians are judges. The RAM JAM "battle of the bands" is a really cool event that has drawn high school bands from GA, SC, and NC to our fair city to worship at the city of rock. The RAM JAM Committee wants to auction off 2 art guitars and all raffle tickets would be sold at the event, but those details are not firm yet.

Proceeds from RAM JAM (after all expenses are paid...and the Committee has to raise all the money...the school does not fund this event) support an annual mission- work trip to Haiti doing direct relief --assisting in the feeding of families. This past March was their third trip to a village in Northern Haiti called Terrier Rouge. The kids are assisted by Hank Wright, an Athens physical therapist who also does physical therapy work while they are there, too.

Current work available

These are probably the last large pieces i'll have before heading out of Athens. i do have some smaller boards ready to paint that i'm hoping to get around to, but frankly, i have so much to do in the next few weeks, i don't know if i'll have time to paint anything other than the Chrysanthemum mural project. So, in descending order...

1."1960", 32" X 48", $450.(sold)
2."Half-Circles",12" X 24", $175. each (there are 4)(the blue/redorange one and the green one are sold)
3."5/10", 48" X 60", $2500.
4."Wallpaper For a New United Nations", 48" X 60", $2500.
5."City 6". 36" X 72", $750.(sold)

no news is bad news

i have a lot of really smart friends who work in the field of journalism, specifically at NPR and CNN, and i rely totally and blindly on them to keep me informed about what is happening in the world. in addition i have free access to avenues of information via radio and internet that i cannot imagine living without. in fact, i can't imagine personal liberty or democracy without them. it occurred to me that i haven't really paid my dues or done very much to support these organizations. i mean, come on, when was the last time any of us sent money to the BBC? as part of doing my part, here are links to donate to some my personal favorites. feel free to add your own to the list...

PBS

Alternative Radio

To The Best of Our Knowledge

Radiolab

WUGA (Athens NPR)

Flagpole P.O. Box 1027 Athens, Georgia 30603


KCRW in Santa Monica

Fresh Air with Terry Gross (subscribe to podcast)

BBC

Athens Banner-Herald (subscribe)

guitart

i painted this to be auctioned at a Nuçi's Space fundraiser a while back. just came across the photo tonight and realized i'd never really shown it to anyone. so there you go.

On being like nothing else

Excerpted from an interview with Brian Eno by Paul Morley, published in the Guardian on Sun. Jan 17, 2010:
"In my house in Oxfordshire, we have this big, beautiful Andrew Logan sculpture of a lovely Pegasus with blue glass wings. When I get a taxi from the station, a driver will always comment on it because it is so striking. What they often say is, 'What does that stand for then?' Or, 'What does that mean?', based on the idea that something exists because it has to tell you something, or it refers to something else, and I realise that this notion is foreign to me. The earliest paintings I loved were always the most non-referential paintings you can imagine, by painters such as Mondrian. I was thrilled by them because they didn't refer to anything else. They stood alone and they were just charged magic objects that did not get their strength from being connected to anything else."

Currently on my visual playlist

Three things i can't get enough of today, being middle February and cold and only halfway to spring, Glasswing butterflies, snow crystals and (my favorite of all the folding bikes) the Strida5.

bird tracks

it snowed today and my phone camera photographs really blue. so there you go. bird tracks.

If eliminating the non-essential were an extreme sport

Straight from today's Guardian, Albert Exergian's modernist TV posters. Not your grandmother's Über-Einfachheit... got to love a man who can really cut to the chase.The collection is available at Blanka

YFF calendar features 14 Athens Artists

Click here to see the calendar page by page.
Featuring myself (cover) and Jim Fiscus, Dan Donahue, Christy Bush, Kim Kirby & Winston Parker, Chris Bilheimer, Jeff Owens, Carol John, Michael Lachowski, Cindy Jerrell, Matt Blanks, Layet Johnson, Mike Landers and Carl Martin.

4 buildings from my trip to texas

The courthouse in Denton on Christmas Eve.
My friend Barley Vogel's Art School.
A home in Dallas' Greenville Avenue area.
My parents' home during a snowstorm.