27 March 2017

The A-Sides

"It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you, 
Without a strong rhyme to step to..."

So ends the summer of my discontent. 
It's been a rough while indeed, life had its ugly way with me & without goin' into unnecessary (& unpleasant) detail, let's leave it at that & get to the good stuff. 
I have felt not like myself for a hot minute & now I feel finally reinvigorated, rejuvenated & indeed re-inspired (sic?). In light of that, I have decided to kickstart my ass back into the proverbial artistic saddle by postin' my "top five" (with thanks & apologies to Mr. Nick Hornby) favorite pieces I've done thru the years; to clean out the virtual closet as it were to hopefully make room for some new stuff which I will hit y'all up with as soon as the inspiration flows from my inky fingers.
So without further ado & just a bit o' context, 
here are some works past & present to inspire the future...

We begin our archival journey in November 2008, Obama won his first term & my lovely bride danced in Brooklyn to celebrate. "Baby Got Hope" was featured in the wonderful book, "Design For Obama", & is pretty much the impetus for this here website~

Spike Lee likes this one very much indeed!

Piece 2 (Woo-hoo!), really goin' far in the WayBack Machine, but Satchmo needs no introduction...

Louis makes me smile.

A bridge too far:

We have the Brooklyn Bridge in nuestro baño!

Kevin needs some context methinks: Part of a much larger installation called "Positivity", a collection of quotes I culled from folks who were HIV positive to allow for hope in a time of seeming hopelessness-

Would that we all had the ruby reds...

& we end the greatest hits (& misses) with the mackdaddy his own self, "Obama Said Knock You Out": quite a viral sensation, Tweeted out by none other than LL Cool J on election nite & becoming one of the biggest retweets of the evening (what the kids would call "viral"?) as well as in physical poster form traversing its way from New York to Cali & from Mexico to Japan & many points in between... 
Probably my real fave of all, not just 'cause of the hype (don't believe it, man!), but I feel it is truly the most successful piece I've done, artistically, technically, philosophically, politically, & spiritually~

Pure GOAT!



Next episode: 
Deep Cuts: the B-Sides, Rarites & Outtakes, 
then on to the new grooves!

21 March 2017

Konnichiwa!

Can't believe I never posted this, but it's been ten years since I had the extraordinary honor of being named a Fulbright Scholar & traveling to Japan as a guest of the Japanese government. To share my experiences I created a series of paintings collectively titled "Windows on Japan". 
You can クリック to see the whole series, but here is a small sampling~ 
Senso-ji

Samurai Firemen

Neon Wonderland (Tokyo by nite)

Asakusa Kannon (Buddha)

Gamera!

Window on Japan 1
kids are kids
Chomeiji