Thursday was the last night in a series of free sunset summer concerts at Lyndhurst Estate in Tarrytown, NY. Having regretfully missed all in the series, when I arrived home, I literally ran over to catch the last half of Bobby Sanabria’s jazz and Latin music concert. I arrived out of breath, plopped down on the lawn and worked away in my sketch pad while enjoying the music. That is until I was told to put my sketch pad down and dance the merengue with everyone else by Sanabria himself.
On my walk home after dark the old gothic mansion caught my eye. After I tried unsuccessfully to capture a steady image I snapped this picture by placing my camera in the grass blindly and pointing it in the general direction of the mansion. This photo reminds me of images that I took with a pin-hole camera when I was in high school which usually had a very low perspective because the camera needed to be placed on a solid surface for long exposures.
I am not one to name drop but I am sure that are a number of people out there thinking, OMG!! Chris Brown!!
Now, let me take a moment to explain that my lunch was with Westchester based singer songwriter Chris Brown who plays a mean acoustic guitar sings with a James Taylor style of music. Not to be mistaken for, which he often is, the Hip-Hop/R&B superstar Chris Brown. Now the Chris Brown I know was performing under the name Chris Brown long before the other Chris Brown was born, but occasionally he is still greeted by disappointed teens showing up at his gigs expecting someone else.
I used to work with Chris who is also a talented graphic artist. When we worked together I would often hang around well past my appointed time to throw ideas at him about innovations, breaking molds and plain ole art. From time to time we still meet up to talk about old times, new times and new ideas.
Yesterday our conversation ended with a tinge of disappointment in his deep Barry White like voice. He asked if I had been painting. I hung my head and mumbled . . . no. Paint he rumbled. . . PAINT!
I spent a good part of my day working on four panels that are a part of a larger 12 panel piece.
The past couple of years I have spent a summer afternoon in Astoria Queens, New York at the Musical Saw Festival watching Natalia Paruz, The Saw Lady and musicians from around the world of all ages playing the musical saw. And when I say musical saw some people have custom made musical saws and others perform with saws that they literally purchased off the shelf at a hardware store. Natalia’s saw doesn’t have teeth because the New York Police Department won’t let her play in the subways with a toothed saw because “it can be used as a weapon.”
A week from now, Saturday, August 7 will be the 8th annual Musical Saw Festival. Each year she also has a small art exhibition focusing on the musical saw, which includes a painted portrait that I did of her playing the saw.
I first met Natalia back in 2008 when I began working on a series of photo essays and paintings of street musicians. Last year at the Musical Saw Festival I watched as she and 52 other musical saw players played their way into the Guinness Book of World Records for the “Largest Musical Saw ensemble.” That night I pulled a saw out of my tool box and gave it a try. I didn’t make what I would call “music’ but it was certainly playable.
I was scheduled to begin teaching a two-week course in Flash animation this week for teens, but the class was cancelled due to low enrollment. Drats!! But I’m scheduled for a second session and I created this over-the-top promo to stir up some interest and get my teaching career started.
The style of the piece is modeled after one of my favorite on-line teachers, Andrew Kramer of VideoCoPilot.net who has tons of free tutorials as well as (highly recommended) products for sale on his website (that’s where I got my music for my promo). Kramer makes the finished product so exciting that any student of motion graphics and visual effects will sweat blood to achieve the same, but rarely do they with Kramers videos on hand.
I also recommend Chris Georgenes‘ book, How to cheat-Adobe Flash CS5 (although I am using the CS3 edition). If you want to learn character animation he is one of the best having done Flash animation for broadcast TV. Check out his work at MudBubble.com.
The other day while having a conversation with my wife, I held my hand in from of my face and exclaimed, whoa!! She asked if I had lost my wedding ring again. I said no, just an idea on a modification of a watch design, and sorry to disturb what she was saying. My mind just wandered a bit.
I felt really bad that ideas are popping in my mind in the middle of conversations but the other day I read in The New York Times an article entitled, Discovering the Virtues of a Wandering Mind. It extolls that wandering minds and daydreaming are great for creativity. The opening line . . . At long last, the doodling daydreamer is getting some respect.
So the next time I zone out in the middle of a conversation I can just explain that I was working.
I carry this memo pad with me whenever I can to jot down fleeting ideas, inventions and designs that waft across my consciousness.
As I prepare to begin for my first teaching job at a junior college, I felt I needed insight into how teachers deal with students beyond just the teaching of materials. A few years ago I read the book Angela’s Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of Frank McCourt. He tells of his poor and “miserable” childhood in Ireland. I loved the book and knew he had later written a book about his years teaching English in the New York City public school system entitled Teacher Man.
I finished the book last week. It put my mind at ease to learn from his experiences and to know that he didn’t always know what to do, took risks and experimented in order to find his way. To know that he survived 30 years with all manner of students; the good, the bad and the imposing students with black belts in karate gave me comfort.
Yesterday I had an interview a the Bronx Community College for an adjunct position. I arrived early and wandered through the empty stifling air-conditionless building, popping my head into old and weathered classrooms.
Outside the Art Department office, there was a bust of Albert Einstein. A wad of gum stuck in his right nostril and there were traces of gum that has been scraped from the other. I smiled to myself and though, I can do this.
Often while enjoying a meal or walking down the street something ordinary and often fleeting may catch my eye. In the middle of dessert to the surprise of my friends I began admiring the artistic quality of my half eaten dessert and had an impromptu photo session with my brownie and gelato.
Today I met Guillermo an old friend from Miami at MoMa for an evening enjoying art. We chatted about the art, why he liked Clifford Still and why I liked Mark Rothko. We both enjoyed the fact that quite often we couldn’t understand why certain pieces were considered good enough to warrant a space in the museum.
I was swept away is a sort of waking dream. I saw myself back in the home I grew up in. We had an identical set of tumblers when I was seven, eight, nine or thearabouts. The blue cup was “my cup” was till I left for college.
I first became aware of the book Life of Pi more than a year ago, when the image of a small brown skinned boy curled up in a fetal position on a life boat with a tiger four times his size caught my eye, one day at the library. I have checked the book out three times before it finally took hold.
I thought to mention the book several times as it has perfectly enthralled me. I have chucked often, and thought deeply as well. I appreciate the wonderfully sculpted words of the author Yann Martel. One image that made me chuckle with delight was the encounter at a zoo between Pi (the protagonist) and two of his religious mentors, Mr. Kumar and Mr. Kumar.
I have yet to finish, but this quote grab ahold of me last night and I felt the need to to share.
“I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
