Delicate progression in the shadow

Progress or... not?

Well I wanted to take it away from Esher, age it, dirty it up. Then I had to save some areas with paint, now I gotta figure out what next.

Casa Peruana

Here's a piece I am currently working on, in its unfinished form. This is new for me, since I've mostly worked on small scale until now, and this is quite large, and still covered in my teeny-tiny pencil marks. The piece is loosely based on a building I saw in Arequipa not too far from the futbal stadium, but it's more of an impression of South American sprawly architecture, a way of life in which structure of time, of certain alignment, of certain anything exists mid tectonic shift and whose logic escapes me. Also this is my impression of life at such great heights that met me with unshakable breath-stealing altitude sickness.

Gunston Hall

Ancient Torsos in the Met

Chinatown, Washington DC

This weekend for some reason I got to see the Chinatown in DC, Manhattan and Brooklyn... This is the view from a Starbucks where I was waiting for the bus to Big Apple, overhearing people at business lunch confessing to each other their fear of computers and an idle Bible-repeater mumble on with feign care in his disdain that all the people passing by need to discover just one name.

An old stove.

I happened to see this iron stove in a West Virginian cabin my friends' family rented out for a weekend in August. The place was filled with antique furniture and age. If you happen to know anything about antiques, please share your opinion on how old this may be. The letters on the design read W and R.

San Lazaro District, Arequipa, Peru

The only observed drawing I produced on this trip. But it was a pleasant couple of hours of unrushed meditative doodling on a day when life gives you what you want for a few hours, squeezed between uncertainty and frenzy of surviving without direction on some arbitrary spot on the globe that has solidified into your habits and fears in an imprint that's hard to wash off. Sometimes life gives you a restful morning, an embrace of sunshine, a destination for the flailing strain of survival. This rare calm is in this piece. A privilege to simply breathe and draw, without that dire need to express anything in particular, to capture, to define, to expel, to conquer. I happened to be on a street of a South American desert town in the summer of 2009. How long will this town stand? How long will the street stay unaltered? How long will I? I may have gone out of an unreasoned turmoil that a beating heart can cause in a meticulous mind, but what I have to show for it all is just this sketch of a few moments of tenderness I shared with the harsh Arequipan sun. An achievement somewhere in between dedication and an accident.

On micro-celebrity culture.

NPR's Kojo Nnamdi sits down with Hal Niedzviecki, author of "The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and our Neighbors (City Lights, San Francisco) and founder of the Broken Pencil Magazine to examine the transition of pop culture into peep culture. Facebook, bloggging and twitter, here we go.

I happen to hate the term, but the observation is on point and something I have been mulling over lately, as any self-respecting element of the synchronicity should be doing.

For the first time in nine years of life in America I feel in tune with it's culture: facebook addiction, voyerism, cybersex, google and wiki over institutionalized learning; all creation digital... self as a brand, self unmentioned, self partitioned for the public eye. Everyone's in the yellow papers now, but IS privacy a commodity to be exchanged for attention, as Hal states? And by the way, what a great name...

I believe there is a place in this whirlpool for a person to preserve their dignity and live in line with the honor of their life and the REAL. For myself, I must formulate a rule in order to stay sane in the pull of this mass addiction:

No digital act shall be taken as an end in itself. Only as a means to create the REAL.

Not vice versa. I will not join the obsession with publicizing one's own life out of the sheer kick of the quasi underground celebrity. What I will give is art. Work. Creation. Yes it may be personal, as any human being is limited by their person, but do not for a second fall into the false assumption that you know me. And I will respect you in return in not assuming that your blog and facebook posts sum up even such a small part of you, as your character.

Creation of the REAL is what justifies it all for me. Under this falls the original premise of facebook: bringing connection to family and friends that are far away. Clearly, it has gone beyond that, into the realm of micro-journalism, micro-celebrity. Simply said, we got our village back, and we must learn to live in it, without detaching from the notion of full life, full emotion and full connection. It is exquisitely satisfying to be a part of a movement, a collective if you will, but at the end of the day it will drive you crazy if your society is only accessible by sitting for hours, in front of a screen, in an isolated room, alone. Might as well start plugging hoses in our necks.

Maybe not everyone goes online in such isolation, of course. Hey maybe I'm behind on this, since I ain't got no hand-held, but the idea of people sitting TOGETHER each on their own computer absolutely disconnected, when they could turn around and... talk is even more frightening. And so, the only plausible way to maintain one's humanity, humility, and honor Life is to treat the damned gadgets as gadgets?

It's tougher than that... Microblogging does create real responses. The sense of knowing a person from their actions and responses to events publicly visible to everyone comes naturally, like in class or at work, and is experienced with fantastic authenticity. But it is NOT who the person is, no matter how revealing their web presence may be. In addition to that, there are minor and absolutely informal, undocumented, sub-groups that form solely around a style of using micro-blogging. Some insist on detached sarcasm, some on emotional honesty, some on religious piety, and others still... spam their way into sex. The more people you have friended the more judgement you may get based on your style of sharing, let alone the things in your life you make public.

What we must remember is that even if people are adopting the ideas of marketing and branding in their web presence, they are not a company, they are not a household product, they are not a character in a book, they are not merchandise attached to a reality series. They are a human being. If you find yourself incapable of feeling compassion for them, think twice before assuming anything else their web presence makes you feel is authentic.

And so, returning to the idea of creation of the REAL. What has been the story of mass media up until now? The printing press, book binding, calligraphy, literacy... It was a process of democratization of an originally elite privilege: to have a voice. In writing, as in lithography, printing has gone hand in hand with the spread of literacy (verbal or visual), but it has never been an end in itself. Even within the art form of printmaking, the idea of a print as a final product is superimposed on its original function and maintained artificially through limiting a number of copies. To jack up the price. And subsequently make the work inaccessible to anyone who can't afford it. The intrinsic power of print, however, has always been in mass communication and mass availability. And that power has been used in facilitating transformation in the realm of the real. From manifestos to newspapers to ad campaigns, a voice is not a trivial ability to posses. It is certainly not a mere vocal chord to satisfy selfish whims of hysteria with attention grabbing fits.

Perhaps, as a society, as a synchronicity, we are experiencing transformation from this choral howl, but as individuals, we are at risk of drowning in it. Perhaps being less obsessed with individuality is not all that bad, and about time (you know... the Age of Aquarius and all that), but there is nothing good in a mass indulging in a lobotomizing and debasing addiction. No matter what cyber life offers, it is a removal from Reality. A tool. If used towards Reality it is of great value, as an end in itself... well, it's the Matrix.

Through camera buzz, trying to sing again...

AMOSHIMASHA Blog Launched

My best friend, otherwise known as Amosh, will be documenting his journey from China to Israel on a unicycle. Reality poetry will be accompanied with illustrations by yours truly. Follow our blog atamoshimasha.blogspot.com

Drawing the Passions

Watching Hot Dads at Virginia Beach

Mild Erotica

Tomorrow will erase this, you can count on it.
The walk through the narrow hallway like a ghost floats through past
invisible to Richmond in the endless swallow
of PBRs and aggressive twitching to the dj's pulse en masse.

dirt-tanned regulars and their pit-bulls
pretty girls in pretty dresses with crusted eyeliner and forties bottles
tiny shaved dykes with enourmos square glasses in summer dresses
tall tall biker boys tucking their hands in the straps of their backpacks for alcohol supplies watching over the crowd
baby faced freshmen intently sucking cigarettes in a rehearsal of rough times
She's a busy city that never cleans.
She has a place for me... somewhere amid the piles of dorm furniture and Old South knick knacks from the sidewalk sale reigning half-packed half-unpacked
my favorite meals and a stack of old essays.

moss over brick
window pane molding
my old windows
away from the house down the street we had carried a rat playing dead in the trash can
i made coffee in the kitchen
my bed had my scent
couch is sold


church bells ring old and true 3 pm
She has drugged me with sun
ready for strolls, a cat on each porch, She is mine for the day.
She is mine for the night. She is mine for a sentence, the damned tease.
Then road.

My Teacher, Sterling!

Colca Canyon. Progress.

Colca Canyon

Working on a piece for Spit'n'Ink Benefit.

Months looking for a job aren't getting me anywhere but deeper into the blues, but just a day at the drawing board, and I get this sketch, a sense that I'm moving somewhere, that my education gave me an incredibly complicated skill, and all I want is to draw more, endlessly.

Wise Owl

Here's a mascot I designed for the WiseBird Consulting LLC.

My new site

I launched a new portfolio site. There are still a few thing to iron out, but at this point I feel it is presentable. Please take a look.
One day you will even remember how to spell my name. ;)

The Urus living on the Lake Titicaca (Final)

The Urus continue the same lifestyle they had for many centuries, with the exception of recent additions of solar panels for electricity, televisions, radio and bright nylon thread they incorporate into traditional textiles over Nirvana T-shirts. They have always maintained trade with the nearby city of Puno. The islands are constructed from layered earth and cane, and are anchored down. Otherwise, they say, they will float away to Bolivia, and they don't have Peruvian documents to be accepted back.
When a family does not contribute to the community and work, they're not asked to leave their homes. Instead they can take their home with them, cutting off a piece of the island.

The Urus II

The Urus living on the Lake Titicaca

Working on a historical piece for my portfolio. Thought I'd save the original pencil drawing before moving on. Final coming up soooooon.