St.Francis

St.Francis is one of those icons that seems to inhabit interesting places for me. Claire told me a lot about him and how he would live outside and tend to the animals. He seemed like such an interesting and gentle man.

So the thing that fascinates me about this statue of him is the stark, almost Leninesque depiction. I'm intrigued by the duality of spiritual leaders. Jesus is often painted as the kindest, softest being ever to have lived, but almost every story in the bible has him scorning non believers with such intensity.

So with that, I needed an animal that would reflect the intensity of St.Francis. The rhino seems to be charging standing still. Lyrics from some old dub song keep coming to mind: "He is calm like a lion"

El Haj

This was the first piece in an informal series of three.
The series is inspired by the complex compositions and exotic iconography of middle eastern and Asian money.



The white area on the left is similar to the watermark security feature of currency. I was interested in the way the negative space had to be worked into the design. Arguably, I could have done a better job. I had trouble working with the almost square format.

Manekisattva

Claire and I went on a 10 day meditation retreat at the start of the year. It consisted of around 10 hours a day of meditation starting at 4am, absolutely no talking, and intense back pain. After a few days without books, radio, music, internet, television or conversation, I began to start seeing things in my head. This image came to me on the seventh day I think.

To me, this piece is hilarious - a maneki neko as a bodhisattva. Not sure if anyone else is getting it.

Anyways - the drawing was done on fancy arches paper that I had to rip myself. It was a real pain to draw on because I didn't want to go very dark and I am used to working in much more forgiving mediums, like wood, that hide your mistakes and shine when you add white.

Heisei Era

A departure from the old and rustic.
I wanted to play with more angular and jarring shapes and colors.
The building is blue ball point pen and the sign and woman are from a printer.

The red at the bottom would be a Chinese signature seal that I hand carved from a piece of soapstone, but the watercolor texture has rendered it illegible.



If you could hear it, this piece would sound like the little things that happen in a city..but far away and echoey. Footsteps, people talking at a bus stop..nothing too exciting.
Very Quiet.

Vestigial remains

I showed some work at the 3rd Vestal show after vowing to put something out into the world in 2008. It was a fun show and people seemed to like the pieces. I will try to post individual pictures of the work soon - it's kinda tricky to photograph it well.

Oh also - that Ferris Bueller caduceus shirt gave me super powers throughout the night.