Joy!

Joy, 3 and 1/2" x 2" (front of card)

My new “Art Card” is ready to go, though I’ve only managed to surreptitiously distribute about 30 of the “Love” and “Peace” cards to date. I decided early on that the cards must be distributed in a way that does not create any fanfare, and over a long period of time. That means I cannot be seen placing the cards. I cannot ask anyone to display and distribute the cards. The cards cannot be overtly displayed and distributed through any businesses including art galleries. At the same time I am keeping a log that shows locations and dates of card distribution.

Joy, 3 and 1/2" x 2" (back of card)

I carry a few of the cards in my wallet, and I put them any place I happen to be, when I think to do so. Quite often I forget, so it is a random process. If I am to increase card distribution, I need to buy a cardholder of some sort so I can carry 50 or more cards on my person. The “Love” and “Peace” cards have been distributed in south Florida locations, but I will be in Delaware and Pennsylvania in the next few months. “Joy” will join “Love” and “Peace” in those states.  Ultimately I hope to leave these and other Art Cards behind in locations outside the United States.

Note

I have written two previous blog entries about the cards; 1) “Love,” May 14th, 2015, and 2) “Art Cards,” April 23rd, 2015.

Doing Laps In the Pool, the Universe and God

The Waterverse (printed version 8" x 10")

I get a glimpse of God and the universe when I do my laps in the pool. I’ve said so before. The rhythm - kick, stroke, and breath – repeated has something to do with it, as well as the patterns of sunlight reflected through the water to the pool bottom. I describe my best swim as being like an infinitesimal mote floating on a feather on the breath of God. I’ve even come to see that the patterns in the shimmering water reflect patterns in our expanding universe, as in the photomontage I made for this entry.* Do I find meaning in the similarity? Yes! Do I understand that meaning intellectually, and can I express it? I’m not so sure. Suffice it to say that I know God because when I swim I am able to suspend all of the other sparkling refracted and reflected images of my life for a brief moment in time.

* The image was made by overlapping a photo taken from “Science Blogs” (http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/08/16/what-does-the-universe-really-look-like/) with a photo I took of wave patterns in the lap pool. I viewed the Science Blog image on Monday, June 15, 2015 at ll:30 AM, EDT. Adobe Photoshop was used to meld the two into one.

Gay Pride Month 2015

In honor of June 2015, Gay Pride Month, I’m posting an artwork from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pictionary.  It is the actual mixed media distressed painting based on the acronym, LGBT.  The painting was finished and signed June 1^st, 2013, and is 24” x 24” square.  I’ve reported on the mixed media distressed technique in the past so I will not go into detail here.  It will be sufficient to say that I work back and forth between photographic images of actual things and people, in some cases historical, in others, images I shoot myself, painted surfaces, and digital images of the work in progress, printed, then torn, sometimes painted over again, photographed again, saved on the computer, worked in Adobe Suite, printed again, torn, painted and so on.

The intent of the series is multiple. 

First, to reclaim words once abusive and instead to make them badges of honor. 

Second, to make a visual record of current terms that denote various populations within the category gay as used on a daily basis in the vernacular. 

Third, to focus on the history of LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) folk.*

I had an exhibition of the LGBT Pictionary at Camp Rehoboth, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware during Gay Pride Month, 2013.  However, it is an on going project, and I hope to both publish a book of the images and do more exhibitions of the artworks.

* The category “Queer” subsumes all the others including heterosexual persons who identify as positive toward LGBT people, and who actively work toward a society/culture that has become “Queer” tolerant.