Lost Nuts and Found Bolts

  I cut my fingernails, with my teeth, After reading “How to get Started” by John Cage- or rather comments about the process of indeterminacy, (Indeterminacy refers to the quality of being vague, uncertain, or not precisely defined, representing a lack of fixed meaning, outcome, or structure. It spans multiple disciplines, including philosophy, vagueness in language/meaning, and chance operations.) ↑Images are cropped and randomly placed, but then three layers of the same images run through the device. speed, contrast, Hue, and brightness modulated accordingly. Permission, layers, speed of image progression.  Discarding preconceived notions of what something is supposed to mean. The work these days is so heavily anchored with intention and meaning that they merely illustrate an idea - even if the two are not related. An image surface, redacted or crossed out. Erased in such a way that it then develops its own meaning.  And how does this apply to my own explorations, my o...

 Off Fifth is the first video/image piece in which the work resides in that liminal space between a slideshow and a video, complete with soundtrack.  https://youtu.be/dg9_Wcxrya4?si=MmnYyHr-HL2joDyI Shadow in the Midst Hook and Ladder Both pieces are stills taken from the video/image pieces.The images are then printed as cmyk monoprint, on paper and then handcolored.

Notation From Gridville 6780 monoprint w/handcoloring mounted on panel 40" X 60" c.2010  Several weeks ago, I attended a Halloween party at Dakini Healing  Arts- a very special place- one of the attendees approached me and mentioned how much he loved the piece, then purchased it.  I love that my work ends up in people's homes, that they want it in their lives.  The piece, as well as other works created during this time, will be included in an upcoming exhibition at the House of RAD

About shadows, the passing of time- one’s presence during the time, that split hair, a razor's edge of experience.  There are the family histories, the fables, and the rumors.  The Spectator, watching from the periphery, documents that passage. But not the significant events, but the ones that filed by, then, slipped away. Images that are comprised of dots, layers, specific colors, layered to become something illusory, shadow people, passing through time and space, until the light fills the shadows, leaving only highlights and glimmers of what was once surrounding the form. "Stepping Through" Video grab from The Device 10/2025

  Why make images? Why hope that somewhere, someplace, there will be a response of some kind. I've been making images of one sort or another for about 56 years. Some days I think, I hit that one out of the park, and then on others it's STEE RIKE THREE. Sometimes these feelings can happen in rapid succession, leaving me either exhilarated or thrashing around in a dark hole.  But still I persist, thinking that the next image will be the one that expresses what I think, or see, or feel. Apparently, I am not there yet.  But still I persist. The following images were created using a program I developed using MAX. Images continually morph using random chance operations built into the program. Think of it like using several slide projectors simultaneously to project images on top of one another.  "CliffHanger" 9/2025 mono print w/ handcoloring Cliffhanger was taken from the YouTube  piece of the same name. https://youtu.be/SVtTBeKd7r0?si=kE22dj6zqYuH9VY_   This gi...

I slipped a roll of film into the camera, loaded the leader onto the spool, and clicked the camera back shut. Then, I called my dog Zack to hop into the VW bus. We were going to San Francisco. I rarely went to San Francisco to photograph, but the day seemed as good as any other, so north to the city we went. The bus rolled to a stop on an unfamiliar street in the city. Zack waited while I got out and wandered around, taking photos of kids, trees, and city detritus. I remember the sky being bright but overcast, as it often was.  As I looked around at all the possibilities, a young woman rode by on her bike. Swoosh—she was gone in an instant. I didn’t think much of it at the time, and then returned to the bus to drive to a different area. Zack, it turned out, loved going for rides in the bus. In fact, when I left him at home for any length of time, he would howl and tear things up.  A few blocks later, I parked and got out to explore. Once again, the same woman zipped by, her h...

Revisiting 1984, by George Orwell- A book I read years ago. I had forgotten that within the pages, a love story emerges, hidden from the constant monitoring of Big Brother. There is a yearning to understand how things got that way. It is of a society splintered, constantly at war, disparate groups isolated and suspicious of one another. There is the longing for touch, intimacy, and emotion, that becomes a reminder of our shared humanity.  There is the  erasure of history one sentence at a time, one experience at a time. Even now in 2025, there are attempts to rewrite(erase)history. What are we afraid of? Is it the acknowledgment of our own brutality and inhumanity? Until we can look at the underlying motives we will watch everything around us unravel. What happened to caring for one another, to offering help, and to showing compassion? Today, anyone different is seen as the "other". One's lack of empathy leads to fear of anything unfamiliar, and t hen fear directs the res...

It's below freezing, The tires feel harder than normal.  The roadbed seems dense, knowing of the comings and goings of humanity.  Noticing only the reflections  in their own windows as they  are passed by someone in more of a hurry than the ones passed. Walking Man One   Walking Man Two

Found this image on my computer.  Not sure how, but it feels like  home This blog will likely be discovered someday- perhaps when I am no longer around. It will be erased or appreciated by someone. who knows? But it makes sense to create knowing that  I must respond to the things, moments, and narratives that matter to me.  So where to start?  I have heard and believe the more someone does something and puts in the time and effort. Good will come from it. But, it mustn't be the only reason. As I was falling asleep I asked myself what the earliest memory was.  I vaguely recall being outside, perhaps not even walking yet crawling around on my belly. the texture of dried grass and dirt- warm sun, a swing set silhouetted by the light - looking into the brightness of the metal from the frame and chain link, the empty saddles. A brother or my twin (I don't know about that.) Could I have held onto my brother in the womb -  a loving embrace of our oneness?...

Finally, it's snowing! I don't know about you, but the seasons are definitely changing. There are fires in California and other parts of the world, along with droughts and famine and boxes full of other calamities. I am called to embrace who and where I am in this  moment, aiming to be genuine in my expression.  There's an interiority to looking outside of one's own experience.  It's a contradiction between popular culture and what's important.    I heard someone say that it is the responsibility of those with white privilege to shine a light on that privilege. But what I see, is that the state of the world revolves around the quest for greed, power, money, and influence, Fueled by an insatiable lust and hunger for more. Finding my way back to the garden Back Yard W/Flash 2024 Back Yard- 12-29-2024

 Yea So,  this year started on a wonderful note,  spent New Year's with good friends. We all felt at ease except for the dog who had her schedule disrupted.  Preparing work, working on my various devices,   I can remember walking into an electronics store when I was about 10   That was before the slot car track & store and the trampoline center were built.. I would walk up and down the aisles wondering about the dials, the capacitors, wires, and clips and imagine how they would fit together or what could be created with all of the various pieces.   The Electronic Store was a few doors down from where the HOB NOB Grocery Store was located - Which by the way was where I was caught shoplifting a bag of Frito's with a friend of mine.- the police were called and I was given a ride home by an officer, who marched me up to our door. We were living in a salmon-colored -maybe it was beige- Duplex at the time. I was whipped by my father, not f...

Discards- back into the stream. Listening to David Byrne - Collage. It's  2025 a New Year. Same time Perhaps I will take all of the little pieces, the bits left over from repairs, extra screws left over from reassembly pieces of tape pulled from scabbed over the skin.  A belt buckle from a long ago deteriorated leather strap. Assorted paper clips, rusty exacto blades, and rubberbands weakened from too much UV. Then to take these various piles of fragments & pieces pile them up in the middle of the floor and photograph them before discarding them The residue of experiences long forgotten Memory Triggers.

After editing, and putting pieces together-  I push post, sending fragments of my life out there,  hoping to find an audience who shares  my sensibilities, experience, and feelings.   The latest piece.   I feel like i am getting closer to something. 

Last Saturday I had the film "Witness" included in the 2024 Evanston Experimental Video Showcase! It is the first time i have seen my work projected onto the side of a building. Complete with sound.

  Watcher CMYK monoprint with hand-coloring 10.5" X 14" c.2024 While sitting in the silence of the morning, I heard a mourning dove sing its song, finches and others filling the moments with theirs. I thought how fortunate I was to hear this fullness of sound, mixed with the slight shadows cast from the flowering cherry and apple trees.  Sometimes though all I hear is the cacophony of bells, whistles, exhaust notes, and the popping of gunshots in the distance.

 Keeper at the Gate CMYK monoprint with hand coloring 10.5" X 14"  Went to look for the northern lights last night, all I could see was the light pollution we give off, so as not to live in darkness.

Winters Promenade CMYK monoprint with hand coloring  10.5" X 14"   c.2024 For years I have gone from painting, drawing, photography, and printmaking, trying to find the thing that resonates most. I realized today that it doesn't need to be one or the other. I need to touch all of those points. It seems that only then do the works feel complete. My focus flits from one to another then back.  Plus, the smaller scale of the new works allows me to enter them on my own terms and in my own time.  I've noticed that when hand-coloring, everything drops away. The concerns, the swirling chaos, everything that clamors for my attention, when all I really need to do is photograph print, and draw, then back.