Hey everyone, I’ve been really busy lately but I decided to finally post some work I’ve done this year.  Hope you enjoy.

The Declarations that were made at the beginning of the American Revolution were so bold, and so inspired.. That even 10 years later, as they’re forming the US Constitution, they’re unable to live up to those ideals and morals laid out in the Declaration of Independence. We have never been able to live up to the aspirations laid out for humanity at the time of the Revolution. And still today, we should look back on our nation’s forefathers for true inspiration for how we should live our lives.

I’m posting these hurricane Irene damage photos from my phone.  So I won’t type much here.. but I wrote a better description in last night’s post.

Thanks to everyone back home who have been checking up on me through this storm.  And a special thank you to my friends Joylene & Emma here in Astoria who rescued my stray punk ass off the streets!

So It’s Saturday August 27th, 2011. The third official day of my first trip to New York City, and along with me, I accidentally lured the first hurricane to strike directly since 1955… Oops… My smart phone has been freezing up as well, and I can’t get a new one until most likely next Tuesday. So I don’t have as many photos to share on this post as I did on the last. But honestly, I’m here at an incredibly interesting time. This could potentially be fairly historic, depending on how things hold out through high tide tomorrow morning around 8am.

At Noon today, the world famous NYC Subways were shut down. They had to move 200 trains out of the stock yards to higher ground. All day there has been a general sence of forboding in the faces of everyone walking around. There has been intermittent rain all day long, but never very heavy. All the clouds have gone from a blanket of white to a slowly fading grey. By now at 7:15pm I’m starting to see what any southeastern american would recognize as outter hurricane bands forming. It’s getting rather quiet outside here, except for the sounds of sirens in the distance. Many store and apartment windows are haphazzardly taped up. Many on the 5-10th floors, where debris will not be flying.

But it’s not just that local New Yorkers have the lack of experience with hurricanes, because almost nobody here is from here. Indonesian girls worried about the oncomming typhoon, little Dominican boys and girls play shooting at the clouds with their umbrellas, and miniature old polish women wrapped from head to toe in plastic bags wearing their heaviest shoes. What I’ve already discovered in my short time here is the personal experiential sence that New York isn’t really a place at all… It’s a state of mind. This is the modern Library of Alexandria. This is the place where all of the world’s greatest minds in their fields come together to collaborate on defining the future. There really are skills one can develope here to such a high degree, that would never be applicable anywhere else. But it’s the perfect place for one to learn how to truely be as human as possible.

New York always gets such a bad rap on being so harsh, rude, and unfriendly. I haven’t found any of those to be as true as strong as some might think. Sure, people might sit face to face on a train for 10 stops without saying a word. But they’re not being rude, it’s more of a civil courtesy. People here are from such vastly different backgrounds, that there’s no way you could have similar thoughts and opinions as most everyone else around you. So to not talk on a train car, is to avoid offending someone’s personal beliefs in the 10 minutes the two will ever see each other. When I’ve been a bit lost on occassion, I can always find someone willing to help. The streets are confussing to get used to, but structurally sensible. Everything laid out in a grid, numbered and lined with long stretching avenues. No matter what language you arrive to this town with, you can get your bearrings.

I have been staying with a friend who I met at the Old Exchange building almost 3 years ago. We have stayed in contact since then, and become real friends. Originally my plan was to stay amongst several different friends so I didn’t have to burdeon anyone for more than like 3 nights. Now that the train service to Philly is shut down, and my other friends have evacuated. These kind people, my friend and her roommate, have been gracious enough to let me stay here. I nearly rented a hotel in Manhattan to avoid being rude, but it would be over $1000 to stay through the duration of the storm. They told me not to be so outlandish with the expense. This has been an incredible vacation, and not one thing has gone according to my plans. I will try to keep updating the site as best as possible with loosing and regaining power.

Day 1

I flew into Laguardia at 5:30 on Wednesday , August 24th.  I caught a cab to my friend’s apartment in Queens and that night went to a Silent Film screening in a park down the street.  This park was also lined with a sculpture garden as you walked around the perimeter.  They showed the famous Harold Lloyd film “Safety Last” (1923) where he’s climbing the side of a building and ends up hanging from a clockface.  There were also a few short films by local filmmakers, and they had a live band doing all the voice overs and sound fx.

Day 2

Woke up early, went down to the bagel shop for breakfast and coffee.  After getting confused on the subway for a bit I somehow ended up running into Central Park.  I figure how better to get your bearings than by the city’s largest landmark?  It was very nice from what I saw, and I even recognized a few things from  books and movies.  Notably I accidentaly came across the Carosel from the “Catcher in the Rye”.  I figured while I’m at iit I should look at the American Natural History Museum.  It was a much longer walk than I realized by the map, and I got caught walking through the rain.  So needless to say, I was excited when I arrived.  It was quickly so overcrowded from the rain that I just looked around a little.  Although I was able to find the display where Neil deGrasse Tyson first demoted Pluto from it’s planethood in the public eye.  From there I hopped back on the subway and started heading down to see Ground Zero.  It was a pretty intense feeling to actually stand there.  Everything is busseling in that area, and it’s wild to see the construction crew’s progress on the new Freedom Tour.  It’s a fraction of it’s intended final size, and already taller than any building in Charleston.  I passed by St.Paul’s church right there as well.  Then I went off to meet with friends and got to stand on an incredible terrace that had a view of the Empire State Building as well as the Chrystler building along with so many others.  Absolutely spectacular, I must admit.

I’m teaching myself video editing software, so I tried editing two angles I had together.

This is a puppet show I created for my live performance art contribution to the “Eyeball Art Shows: Suitcase Show” held in the Olde North Charleston Meeting Place in 2010. Five artists were given songs that were to be performed by the local group “Subterranean Bleu Minds” at the show a month in advance. Each artist developed a concept for their contribution.

In this video a strange bird-like man creature with an Indy style hat tells the ancient tale of a space craft descending from the heavens. They felt futile against it’s attack until they developed a special weapon to defeat the aliens. From a suitcase, the story begins to unfold. A city skyline develops, and the tail begins to unravel.

Click the link below to see my final cut. Hope you all enjoy!

Suitcase Show – Puppet Show

I just added two pieces from 2009 I found in the warehouse.  And three new pieces from this year!  Many more to come soon.  I’ve been working on a lot of new pieces here lately, and messing with some old videos I’m finding.

[Click Here To Preview All Art]

Here are some thumbnails of newly added work.

I just did a big update displaying some of the design work I have done for the Old Exchange Building.

Now, Click Here, and you’ll be taken to a new fully designed page showing you larger examples of these and much more!

I decided I would post some progress photos of the piece I’m working on for the show this Saturday. I’m painting on the back side of a large glass shower door. The goal is to start out painting all the fine detail first, and work backwards with each layer. I had several thoughts in mind for this one, and it took me a good while to really nail down which concept to pursue. So finally it came down to an Alien attack on a city. A theme I’ve repeated through several pieces over the years. But this one will be neat as you will be able to see through parts of the glass above the city scape. In the end you will be able to stand behind it and look like a giant Kaiju monster as part of the image. I really like this concept as well and now plan to pursue it through other glass paintings in the future.

You can see from this photo that the UFO saucers are nearly complete, but there is still a good amount of work to be done on the city background. To prime it from the start I sprayed a good layer of sealer on the glass, with another good layer on top of each layer in the piece. More photos to come as progress continues.

Don’t forget to come out this Saturday for “Through the Looking Glass” from 2pm on through the evening to see this piece along side work from many other amazing local artists. I can’t wait to see everyone else’s take on this one!!

See ya'll there!

UPDATE! 6/16

Here are some photos of the completed piece. Here’s a Link to the Charleston City Paper article about the upcoming show this weekend.