In Their Boots on PBS

Almost two years ago, I had the honor of being interviewed along with local artist Charles Bennett as well as political activist and artist Debbie Boen for PBS's documentary series, In Their Boots, which focuses on the struggles and lives of our military and their families.

I owe a thanks to Debbie for roping us in on this project. Debbie and I were acquainted as artists through a political exhibit and open-mic event I curated with Gikuyu Wamuiru back in 2006, entitled Tour of Wurdz: Let's Get Political. Debbie really set the show off since most of her work is politically themed. You can read more about Debbie's work and efforts as an activist in an article posted today by Business Clarksville. She has a fabulous life-size cutout of George W. Bush with a voice bubble where you can choose from dozens of famous blooper Bush quotes. After choosing your quote, we would take pictures of patrons of the exhibit posing with Bush. Debbie and I went on to work together on a few more political exhibits I curated including "How I Learned to Stop Worrying..." and "We the People" (both at The Icehouse Cafe.)

The episode of In Their Boots we were interviewed for which was simply entitled "Clarksville" aired recently and is available to view online. My hometown of Clarksville, TN borders Fort Campbell, KY which has been home to the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army since World War II. Clarksville is considered a military town rich with such heritage. Countless military families have made a permanent home here after serving in the armed forces. This show takes on many aspects of being a military town including artists and how they interpret their feelings about and toward the war and our troops. While Charles and I are in the documentary with Debbie, our verbiage ended up on the editing room floor. Debbie had some wonderful things to say about the artistic process in regards to their subject and I hope you all take a chance to see the show...

DRACULA: opening this week!

Blacula (inks on bristol / 2010)

A few weeks back, I gave you a sneak peek at some sketches of my vampires for the upcoming DRACULA exhibit featuring new works from myself and Charles Bennett. Here is your glimpse at the books we had made for the show as well as some of my framed illustrations ready for the walls of The Roxy Regional Theater!

The exhibit will run through the month of October along with the theater's production of a musical version of Dracula. Here are a few of the works I framed today including a collaborative piece I did with Charles of Count Orlok, Blacula, and Grandpa Munster and many more...






We'll have a limited edition of 25 books available at the opening reception on Thursday, October 7th during Clarksville's Downtown Art Walk! The books will each be $25 (48 FULL color pages, magazine sized, with artist statements explaining the history of our subjects and how they influenced as well as inspired each piece of artwork.

Personalized Signature!

Frolic on Franklin

Frolic on Franklin is held every September to benefit the Roxy Regional Theatre here in Clarksville. Arts and craft vendors fill Franklin Street along with performances in front of the theater leading up to their annual gala fundraiser and art auction.

The guys from Clarksvillenow.com dropped by to talk about my work. Here are some pics from this year's event courtesy of their site...



The Tuckassee Woodworkers make some really neat stuff and demonstrate their craft for patrons of the festival...

A Portrait of the Artist- Judy Lewis

I first met Judy Lewis at Frolic on Franklin (an annual arts festival which serves as a fundraiser for The Roxy Regional Theatre) here in town a couple of years back. Judy is a very generous and talented artist and it was an honor for me to do a portrait for her! She wanted her dog Harley included and I know what a big Elton John fan she is. I posted the sketch on Facebook earlier this week so that she could get a sneak peak at the work in progress. She explained that she learned to draw by copying his album covers while she listened to the records back in the day.

Check out Judy's work at her Fan Page!

Merry Clayton (Music to My Ears)

I first read about Merry Clayton a few months back after hearing The Rolling Stone's Gimme Shelter for the 1,372nd time. I don't know what it was about this particular run-through but it hit me like a tidal wave of emotion. I'd always liked the song but man did it do a number on me that day. One of the things that got me was a background singer whose name I've mentioned. Waves of goosebumps overtook me starting behind my ears and traveling down my neck into my shoulders as her notes belted out against the apocalyptic forefront of the song...



Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way

and Merry comes in...

War, children, it's just a shot away

The true beauty in the structure of this classic song is in the progression of the chorus. In the next portion of the song, it turns even more macabre with Merry taking over (before she's just backing up Jagger, now she's in control and sings...)

Rape, murder!

It's just a shot away

It's just a shot away

Three times she belts these lines out, and each time the emotion grows. On the third murder, her voice cracks and my body explodes with pins and needles. This might be the all-encompassing thunder of an entire generation in one note that can never be replicated. (I found later, that if you turn it up loud enough, you can hear Jagger in the background yell, "yeah!" when her voice cracks like that.

It turns out that you and I have heard this amazing voice many many times before and in places you'd never expect. Aside from The Stones, she sang for Lynyrd Skynyrd (Sweet Home Alabama), Neil Young, Carol King, Tom Jones, and Joe Cocker on one of my all-time favorite songs, Feelin' Alright! She also played The Acid Queen in The Who's Tommy. The most interesting song I found her on that I'd heard a million times is Tori Amos's Cornflake Girl...

And the man with the golden gun

Thinks he knows so much

Thinks he knows so much

Yeh, her again... and a new take on another song. (And a new portrait for your fresh eyes.)

Via Colori Street Painting Festival

Well, I turned the BIG Three-OH this past weekend with a full schedule. Aurora and I attended the artists' reception at RiverFest's Tour D'Art Friday before hitting the road for Elizabethtown, KY to take part in their annual street painting festival.




My portrait of Nikola Tesla: Architect of Light placed third in the Professional Drawing category. ($10 prints available through my website)

I was delighted to win a cash award finally with one of my works in our annual juried exhibit (I kept getting Honorable Mentions in past exhibits.) This was a nice birthday touch indeed and some fuel for thought before our festival in the morning as we left town Friday night for a rainy drive. This was a bad omen considering we had to be set up outside all weekend. We kept our fingers crossed and finished out my birthday with dinner and a small road trip.

Via Colori has been held in Elizabethtown for the past three years in their historic downtown. This annual street painting festival is a charity for the Advocacy & Support Center. Folks pull together to contribute in many ways through volunteering, making art, and getting businesses and residents to sponsor artists to raise funds. Upon checking in, I found that a local couple had been generous enough to have sponsored my square and made a donation.

One of my main motivations behind doing this festival was to try something new... which turned out to be the theme for the entire weekend. I've never really done any graffiti or street art or anything of that nature. I've done live paintings a handful of times which is pretty exciting to see the reactions from the viewers wherever you're at. I work pretty fast so I gathered a small crowd when they started to see my colors coming together!

My square was on Main St. Aurora manned our tent while I headed over a couple of blocks to get to work!







It was fun working with a new medium. We were each given a box of pastels and a couple of sets of baby socks to use to cover our fingers to blend the colors with. After laying down the colors, I did some blending to see where we were headed...




The streets were blocked off so folks were getting to see my work walking both down the sidewalk and up the middle of the street. I did a Topsy-Turvy with my square to maximize the head turning! I was bent over and deep into the process and kept hearing people say, "It looks like Picasso!" or just say "Dali." It was flattering to hear such masterful names be evoked by my progress. As I was finishing up, I began pointing out to people that you could see it differently from either side and how my Topsy-Turvy series worked. The children especially had fun running in circled and back and forth looking at my work.




One of the driving forces of creativity the instant gratification of it all. You put the colors down and you get results. There is instant stimulus to you and your eyes and your ears as people talk about what you've done. I got a lesson in this Saturday morning as I put my signature on my piece and the sky opened right up on us... I huddled under the awning of a local business drenched and watched my Topsy-Turvy streak down the street into oblivion. Some of the folks who'd been watching me work stuck around to have a laugh about it. Luckily for most of the other artists, they were still in the preliminary stages of their work while I'd furiously hammered mine out in 45 minutes. I couldn't have timed it more perfectly if I tried.


The art we create has a life and has a pulse just as we do. It has it's audience and it has it's time; whether it's 45 minutes of chalk, a few weeks before a piece of street art is covered, or time taking the life and matter of a piece of paper until it crumbles. Aren't you glad you are here to appreciate it?

DIORAMA-O-RAMA! (group art exhibit this weekend)

This Saturday night at 6PM, Billups Art in East Nashville will host The Diorama Show curated by Brooke E. The exhibit will consist of dioramas created by local artists here in the mid-south. Here is a sneak peek at the process I went through with my wife, Aurora and my good friend Alex creating a collaborative piece for this exhibit...

Aurora likes to make origami and we'd wanted to play around with her making some small animals and me drawing on them. The opportunity had not presented itself until Brooke announced this unique group exhibit! We knew right away what we wanted to do and I sketched out a game plan for the box as Aurora worked on the animals we'd be housing in our diorama...


I employed Alex to build our box. I traded Al some art for a very nice shelf that he build me a few years back... he's got mad skills with some molding and wood! A little blueprint and quick trip to the hardware store and we're in business...

I got to staining the box and accents and got everything put together and clear-coated...




...and then painted the inside to give us our background!


Aurora painted her little pets...


...while I got to work drawing out the other elements for the diorama as well as some small details to collage on the origami!



With the origami sprayed down with a sealant and the tree and foreground illustrations laminated and cut out, it's time to put the puzzle together and get the light in!



Be sure to stop by Billups Art in East Nashville this Saturday night between 6-9PM for the exhibit. There will be art from many of the best local artists there are. It's bound to be one interesting journey! $5 at the door gets you in, get's your whistle wet, gets you sixteen artists, and gets you Ronnie Lee Twist and the Future Cats! See you there to check out the Origami Forest in full swing and lit up!!