art, humor, and the universe
Lately I’ve gotten back into watercolor painting. The tree paintings were inspired by a photograph by my friend Sooyong Kim. I found a caterpillar pencil sketch from summer and decided to color it. The abstract came from testing colors on a scrape piece of paper but I really like it!
Made a flag by sewing the legs of old martial arts uniforms. Here’s both sides.
I have lived in artistic communities since early adulthood. I love the energy, feel it even when I am alone in my room. There is affirmation of the value of creating within an art community. There is knowledge that process is important. The energy in a community where people participate in the creative process helps generate ideas, even as we disagree about the relative value of specific pieces or particular forms of art.
Art for me has been a means of keeping an even keel in a crazy world.
Often when I create, whether a poem, a painting or a song, I don’t fully understand the symbols and juxtapositions of ideas until much later. Art is not a way to recreate reality, but distorts reality in order to fully portray it, like a curved glass will focus the sun’s rays on a single point, and result in a fire.
photo of Baltimore rapper Wealth making a music video in Savage, Maryland.
Morning,
the young beggar stands,
blanket thrown over narrow shoulders,
flimsy white undershirt,
a pile of rags at his feet.
We in cars ignore him,
cast eyes at ruby stop light,
and rising cobalt sky.
Escaped sunflower,
sits in a car, a
moon faced woman
w/ styled bob,
reads her cell phone.
Wheeling seagulls
search for garbage.
Undershirt,
dull khaki jeans,
work boots,
he smokes the 2nd cigarette of the day,
carefully counts them out.
He carries his sign
with jaunty steps,
but
his eyes
are hollow.
gaia mouse 