making grand investments.

yessssssssssssss.

counter-culture observation.

the notion of being non-conformist essentially means conforming to not conforming.

inspirational uniqueness.

as artists, it is inevitable that we are inspired by various things we encounter from day-to-day...hour-to-hour...even minute-to-minute. how we differ is the way in which we deal with these inspirations. thi sis even true for renditions...taking something that's popular, or been done before, and making it our own. it is my belief that our style and artistic eye is not something that we can fully deviate from. at the end of the day, the processing of such inspirational moments is going to bare some quality that makes it ours...makes it unique. if this were not the case we would all end up being very similar...nothing would be more boring that a lack of uniqueness.

music is another huuuge love of mine. the following two videos are musical renditions that lead to the thoughts i am spilling here...there is so much swagger and personal steez in both of these pieces...

first is marvin gaye at the 1983 nba all-star game...homeboy crushes it...he fully captivated the crowd and had them on back-up percussion towards the end. the bast part is that it's just marvin being marvin...he wasn't trying to do anything outlandish, which can be the case today...this man is so smooth...


next is travis barker's rendition of "forever" by four of the currently biggest pop-stars [drake, kanye, weezy and em]...this isn't the best song ever but this should have been the original version in my opinion...trav goes in...


bottom line...we are who we are and this is something we should embracen not something to deviate from.

a moment of self-promotion.

i was never into photography...it was just about the only art class i didn't take in high school...it just didn't seem like my thing. that all changed a little less than a year ago...it became a way to help one of my best friends, martin, on his journey to making smooth, soulful hip-hop tracks for the ages and the world to love. i started out with my pop's old canon ae-1 and no knowledge of how to shoot...a totally experimentational endeavor. but some of those first shots are still my favorite for their rawness and the memories they preserve. since then i've really started to love photo...

check out some of my shots on my flickr page...if you dig deep enough you'll come across some of the afore mentioned first shots that put me on the path i've been travelling...

good music monday #1.

i've decided to start a thing on my blog called good music monday. kind of self-explanatory i suppose...i'll post a song, artist, mixtape, etc. that i like every monday [or at least the ones i remember].

this song i haven't been able to stop listening to as of late. it's by one of my favorite hip hop artists. mos def is totally underrated in my opinion. his flow, lyricism and ability to ride a beat are remarkable. many discredit mos def for his relatively small body of work, especially compared to other that have sustained a career as long as his. but i don't mind that because i feel like he makes sure his body of work is in the state he wants it to be in before he releases it. i love his albums...including the often bashed and discredited new danger, which is where this track is from...the panties.

enjoy.

fuck...

...i need to start drawing again.

thesis review numero deuce.

we met at the livingston art building on friday in an effort to be fair to the sculptors and others that have work there. this would have been my day to crit but i had just painted until late thursday night so my work was still wet and not possible to transport. in these new works [not yet my thesis project] i'm starting to experiment with the injection of photography into painting. i discussed the concepts behind the new works i started...2 sets of diptychs where the photo [i'm using actualy prints] in one panel will influence the painting in the other and vice versa. i understand that this might be hard to grasp with my brief articulation but it make plenty of sense in my head and i hope people will understand when the works or finished. here's a brief look at the work i've started in its earliest stages...




















































the first two photo are going to comprise the first diptych...i believe both panels are 33"x19". the third phot is the second diptych im working on...it's smaller...the panels are each 16"x16". sorry for the delay on the post...i didn't go back to my studio to take the photos until late last night.

standing on a corner thinking.

i took this picture on a corner on fifth avenue across from the flat iron building in new york city. as i toted around my digital slr, i turned the corner and saw this older gentleman leaning against the side of a building with some sort of ancient looking medium format camera [i think], watching people that seem to be oblivious to his existence pass him by. it got me thinking about where we've come and where we're going...specifically in an artistic sense. the progression in technology from his 10lb accordion front camera to my 2lb dslr is a staggering one that i'm sure was unimaginable when his camera was fabricated. it made me think about the progression of the mentality of artists...it made me feel as if i go looking for the perfect photo while this man waits for it to come to him. i think patience and dedication like this sir's are something that have unfortunately faded in our society. i applaud him...i envy him...i respect him. at that moment in my existance i felt inferior...

oh yea...poetry.

so...i'm a poet from time to time...i don't do it often but i do enjoy it. i'm taking a creative writing for poetry class so i figure i might as well throw my rhymes up here...


Progression.

Where do I go from here?
A platform so high,
simultaneously so low.

Where do I go from here?
Direction's been chosen
with no path to follow.

Fear, excitement, sadness
mix with anxiety.
Soon I begin to realize
Common Sense is right,
"Reality's a bitch
and I heard that she bites."

Where do I grow from here?
Uncertainty matters not;
determination breeds greatness.

Where do I grow from here?
I am my own author
and my story is fateless.

The flip-side of reality
is a matter to address.
Definitionless is success.
Success is a life without distress
and feeling satisfied when you
lay your head to rest.

first go'round.

these are from my first experience developing film and making prints...so raw...i loved it...shot on site in new jersey city at the spring '09 "born to run" shoot by phil over at the award tour.

first prints...

































first contact sheets...

thesis review numero uno.

honestly i was sort of disappointed with my first thesis reviews. the whole process was very rushed...after explaining my work style to people that are unfarmiliar with it, there was only a few moments left for general commentary. i appreciated having paul demuro look at my work because i like his perspective on painting and i've been told that his style could relate to mine. one of the things that i did take from the review was some suggested reference artists that i had never heard of, including a little-known french '60s movement called "support surface." also discussed was the treatment of painting presentation in an untraditional matter since my work questions the constructs of painting and takes it to its most basic elements. aside from this i didn't take to much from such a brief crit...hopefully that changes in the near future as i need all of the insight I can get.

i've been thinking a lot.

thinking about my thesis project...
thinking about post-graduation matters...
thinking about my clothing line...
thinking about buying an imac...
thinking about what to eat before i go to bed...

but the thoughts i'm about to discuss correlate to my last post, the train photo series. i took these photo while headed to new york one day on the illustrious nj transit. i was standing in that awkward in-between-car-space because the train was pretty full. i had my camera so i snapped some shots out the window. i do not think they are the best shots ever [and they are lightly edited to remove the haze from the funky nj transit windows] however i think there decent being that i was moving at 80+ miles per hour. they abide by some of the technical "rules" of photography [the last two photos were taken on a different day so they do not apply to these thoughts].

after really looking at these photos and selecting the ones i liked, i thought to myself, "can i really take credit for these shots?" yea, of course i pushed the button to fire the shutter and the photos are on my camera, but i was moving so fast that i couldn't really make decision about what was in the frame and what wasn't. i didn't pick a certain subject to focus on. i guess you could say i got "lucky" with the outcome. i understand that there are plenty of things that we can't control in art, but is this true for photography? especially digital photography? [as far as i'm concerned, developing is practically its own art] i feel like digital is so technical and all decisions must be justified. if that's the case, i can't really justify the decision to fire the shutter at any points i did, based on what was in the frame. if i thought something interesting was approaching while looking out the window, i would snap the shot but i made no decisions about the positioning/angle of objects. at this point i feel like i'm rambling so i'll stop here...but i felt the thoughts that occurred in my head were interesting and worth sharing.

train photo series.