cloudscape

oil on 2x6. 2006. 

boomerang cloud

 

dinner with gramma

we listened to a festive song collection in the recreation room. She drew turkeys with the outline of her hand, drawing faces on the thumbs. 

architect

eleven eleven. smoke signal, or flag, or call, skull, spirit, on steep hill, lone psych hosp. 

chess piece(detail)

tempera and ink on newsprint. 2002.
A suggested stretch for those who can levitate. 

skullheadscocoon

cluster, made with a cartridge pencil which loads like a gun. 

pearahshoot

Special thanks, Danny Aiello. 

infirmary

I recall one of my first realizations of my own innevitable death was while watching a film called Uncommon Valor, which starred Gene Hackman as the father of a Vietnam War POW. Somehow the experience blended with the many hours of MASH reruns. The images of American warriors attempting to rescue an American prisoner in what was a dirt chamber barred-up with bamboo. An organic subterranean jail cell. Crude, but resourceful were the Vietcong.
The cliche sequence that stays with me is one where one of the more haggard of the rescue team finds himself atop an "eagle's nest" tower, with machine gun and firing away, and subsequently is shot in the trachea, as if the enemy were his throat surgeon. It was a clever camera trick, splicing the frames with before and after pseudo-bullethole application. Clearly, that guy wasnt going to come back home. At this point, the prisoners had been retrieved, and the team was making its way to the helicopter, through swaying wheatfields. They carried the wounded and malnourished over their shoulders. Almost everyone makes it to the chopper, but one is wounded by enemy fire. A passenger attempts to reach him, but someone, maybe Hackman, pulls him back, probably saving his life.
The loneliness of a foreign land is bad enough. I can't imagine being an enemy as well. 

oaktag triptych

I cavity
II smoke rings
III good guys off the grid

Green pen on oaktag 8"x10" each
Each time I scanned these, the image got thinner and thinner. 

octo

Things happen in threes, sometimes fours. I really enjoy watching PBS nature programs. The one i saw last night followed a colony of fire ants that had to relocate due to flooding, and formed a liferaft from its own citizens, carrying the queen, larva, grubs, etc. It reminded me a lot of Werner Herzog's Aguirre the Wrath of God. 

travelcycle: working title, previously a fuzzy bike

I am thinking of starting a series of work based on psychiatric facilities. Specifically, the ones that are long retired and overgrown with greenery and vermin. Somehow an old bicycle with an old brown suit case suits the story of the inner journey of a patient's mind. Also, Denis Hayes, thank you for suggesting to scan this, the digital camera was really blurry. 

briefcase bicycle blurry

 

truck