Pretty Pretty

2718, UP / Digital Photograph 2013 / Radocaj 

#SELFIE

Photograph Frida Kahlo in the Blue House / Title - Date - Artist Unknown

Frida, the Mother of All Selfies / Digital Collage 2014 / Radocaj

Frida, the Mother of All Selfies, MEME / Digital Collage 2014 / Radocaj

ORIGINAL POST READ AS:

Have been away from keyboard far, far, far too long. I have many posts and updates and stories to tell but not nearly enough time to record them. So much has happened and is going on around me. I feel like I am in the center of the most magnificent tornado, vortexing between Oz and elsewhere. 
The adventure will continue soon I assure you.

I Do What I Want, I'm Cheeky

Date Unknown / Photographer Unknown / Artist Unknown  -  Date Unknown / Photographer & Image Unknown
But it looks like a Banksy. 

Music of the Trees

Is this a record player that plays the rings of trees? Yes, it is.

The real song of a tree as by artist: Bartholomäus Traubeck, called "Years"

What a beautiful and yet chilling thought. Did you get struck by it too? The actual song of a tree... Its a wonderful concept. The idea of the actual sound of the life of a living tree growing. No one I know can claim to do it. Would take some deep medication. 

No one I know who can so honestly say they truly commune with nature. Likely because it seems to be a sacred action. Something that we modernly have all but completely become lost to its very experience or existence.  Due to our common era and society living, or as we have come to call it,

the "right now."

Even as you read this, can you  notice how aware of how far from the forest you are? We have come so far in technology that you can listen to the sound of a tree as it would be digital electronically,  but the thought of experiencing it as being a part of nature all but escapes us. Perhaps someday the technology will grow so that we can listen to the song of other things growing. Like almonds, or clams, or algae  What other sad, somber beauting thing is coming our way?

Bartholomäus Traubeck / 2011 / the Title Unknown

Been neck deep in art deadlines, new posts coming soon! But even still...

Death Medal Jesus / Digital Photograph / Ishontrans / 2013

I knew Jesus would return. ...As Death Medal Jesus.


Well played SEPTA.

From the Visual into the Audio

Some of the Best Music That You Have Never Heard is All Over the Internet -- And its not Hard to Find. Just Ask Your Friends.

I'm pretty lucky to be able to have a wealth of friends that are artists.
Artists are a fairly welcoming, and an accepting bunch in my experience. They are unpredictable and intelligent. Unafraid to take risks, and ready at an instant to launch you into creating new ideas. Which is triggered by them just being themselves. Artists, musicians, poets, writers always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the "official version" or the popular perception of life, but they know and express the real deal; what it is to be human.

Here's a tiny slice of some music makers I know. Pop open a new tab and hit up their tracks too:

Chicks Throwing Bricks / 2013 / U/K Photographer
http://bit.ly/182eh0m

Forward to an End / 2013 / U/K Photographer  http://bit.ly/11K8DOm 

Space Disc Jockey / 2013 / Radocaj http://bit.ly/17mSQIW

Musicians are the people that I hold in the highest regard artistically. I think because you can't hold music or point to it; its in their head, its in the air, then its in your head. Its really an amazing thing to experience. That's probably the one thing that most of us take for granted as we drive around, go to a show, or just hanging out with music playing. A good beat can inexplicably make you move your body to the rhythm, put your mind on a journey, set you to a mood, or personally connect you an artist and group of people. Flat pictures don't often get the chance to do that to people. I'd love to be able to do that the way music can, but I can't count myself as a musician; as much as I would daydream to be.

People are always griping too about the loves and hates in popular music and the music industry; blah,blah blah. Sometimes I feel when I'm talking about music with people either that I've just met or on the message boards online, I feel like I'm treading on those old taboos (like you can never talk about death, money or politics with people) because it can get really heated. People are passionate about what they listen to. So sometimes its hard to find a good place to have a good, authentic exchange between musicians and musicians, or musicians and fans, or fans and fans. Or to even find a place that helps you find new, good music you like. Always ask your friends, though. They know you best and can be counted on to guide you to new tunes. Or you can leave it to the whims of Pandora Radio or whatever steaming radio you dig, but even then it gets stale pretty quick because mainstream music all sounds the same to me. Its too produced and manufactured and everything just repeats after a while. 

Electronic Musicians Group / 2013

Several months ago through a friend of mine I happened to find this really awesome musician group via Facebook called The Electronic Musicians Group (EMG). It was a tiny group page with only around 70 members, but it connects some of the most talented, and passionate group of funny music folk I've ever encountered from literally across the globe.
Don't let the name fool you, these cats and kitties make and listen to every genre there is; and they do good work its a great community really. You listen to real raw artists; some undiscovered gems. There's a wonderful dialog between the musicians and the community. They corroborate together, invest their skills in each other, and always challenge each other to make themselves better even though many of them have never met face to face. Its great stuff...but you don't have to take my word for it. Go to: http://www.emgradio.com check out the pod-casts and the musician members work.

I love music. And its fascinating to me to see and listen to musician playing live, or privately just at work on their craft. I wish I could figure out how they do what they do. I know that everyone has different processes but I'd love to know how they actually make music happen. When singing about writing music C Lo Green has this great few lines in his song 'Storm Coming' from the Gnarles Barkley album St. Elsewhere: 

Gnarles Barkley / Spin Magazine November 1, 2006 / U/N Photographer

"I could paint a picture with a pen,
But a song will only scratch the skin;
And there are still places I haven't been
Because I know what's in there is already in the air."

I guess that is what it is. That kind of creativity that you can't hold; I wish I knew what that kind of creativity was like. 

Its futile but fun to mill on how music is made, and imagine all the cool stuff I could do if I knew how to do it, but I'm just in the audience watching the show. I remember from my high school bands classroom bulletin board their was this quote from Leopold Stokowski: "A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you [the audience] provide the silence." I think that a real good audience should never be silent. 

Color in Visual Art

Encouragement goes very far.

"You have an innate grasp of light and color. Its really quite unusual and beautiful; you don't see that kind of thing too often." - Maryann Matlock-Hinkle 

She said that to me when I was in studio with her in 2006 at PAFA. Its really wonderful to hear that kind of affirmation when your an emerging artist. Especially when your trapped in the time of life when you are constantly trying to figure out what it is that you are trying to paint, and how to effectively execute it.

When Maryann passed away in 2009 the art world didn't only loose a visionary artist, they lost one of the greatest artist educators to have ever lived. She took the time to really understand the person she was guiding in studio work, wholly gave to them her decades of art production experience in order to fully enrich their studio education, and was an overflowing font of inspiration. 

She made you want to believe in yourself; you don't see that kind of thing too often.

Abstract Blues / Oil on Canvas 2006 / Radocaj

Abstract Greens / Oil on Canvas  / 2006 / Radocaj

Abstract Reds or Rising & Setting in the City / Oil on Wood  2006 / Radocaj

But I Forgot His Name / Oil on Board 2006 / Radocaj

Myself Under the Orange Bandana / Oil on Canvas 2006 / Radocaj

Drifted - A Series of Tryptics / Acrylic on Board  2009 / Radocaj

What Comes in Waves - A Series of Tryptics / Acrylic on Board 2009 / Radocaj 

Avalon Sky 01 / Oil on Canvas 2007 / Radocaj

Avalon Sky 03 / Oil on Canvas 2007 / Radocaj

Vitamin B12 / Acrylic on Canvas 2009 / Radocaj

Vitamin B6 / Acrylic on Canvas 2009 / Radocaj

Wire Sky 01 / Oil on Canvas / Radocaj

Wire Sky 02 / Oil on Canvas / Radocaj

Wire Sky 03 / Oil on Canvas / Radocaj

I could not have made any of this work with out her impact on my life.

I love creativity, but I love sharing creativity with people more.

I make art because it is a daily living need that I have to fulfill. I work as a student of the creative arts to better my skills technically and also because I authentically want to cultivate my ability in the language of the visual. I work as an artist educator because I want to teach others how to strengthen their own artistic skills, nurture their creative expression, and entreat to them the love of art that I have.

I love creativity, but I love sharing creativity with people more.  That’s why I work as an artist. 

When I start to paint I don't want to be intimidated at the beginning, I'd rather cultivate excitement and curiosity. But I am always a little unsure and nervous in the beginning. A blank pallet, a blank canvas; that is the most frightening thing in the world to me. 

 

Look Out or Shadows Dividing, Acrylic 2009 / RADOCAJ

Best quote for drinking. 

By Love is War & Sparkles.

An Unlikely Encounter

Just when I thought that it was safe to back in the water.

WHOA.

Underwater Tiger. 

I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy

I did a photography stint while studding at my University, I suppose everyone has to do one at least to try it out; to see what happens...It was the hardest thing I've ever done at school. Not just technically. Its a lot of preparation, chemistry, and material cost. You have to really know the media; how light reacts in situations, how fast things move. But technical part of photography is actually almost incidental in the end, you could learn to develop film as easily as frying an egg becomes. 

Its the reality of photography that scares me off. The medium is so naked,  frozen, and a single instant in time is utterly exposed. Its so sad to me. You can hold that half second of time in your hand in a photo, but the time in the picture is always already gone. But I wanted to share a few images of this art experiment that I did in the naïvete time of life. 

I found these photographs in a blue plastic folder buried in my studio today. A thin time capsule. I named this portrait series "I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, 2007" -- its about the instances in life when you can briefly feel that human connection to someone, and understand that you both just want the same thing out of life. To be happy.

If you let a kid stick their head out the car window, chances are they will have a good time...just lets not tell your folks I said you could do it. 

I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 1 Feel That Wind Through Your Hair" 2007 / RADOCAJ

I think I took this one on Easter Day, it was after lunch was over. Mom was in a good mood so I asked her if I could take her photo, and why not choose a picture from off of the wall to take with her. I knew at the instant I said that, out of all the family photos she was going to choose the portrait of her dad. I never knew him, but everyone said he was a hoot and liked to put Heinz Ketchup on everything he ate. 

I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 3 Mom and Her Pop" 2007 / RADOCAJ

One of the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life was when I was granted the opportunity to teach art at Saint Lucy's Elementary School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Art was all of the students favorite class to have. Its amazing to see a blind person paint, or draw, or sculpt; they navigate the world so differently from most people. But they can create almost anything just like any artist could with their hands. 

I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 6 Hannah While Making a Sculpture" 2007 / RADOCAJ

My Dad brings so much joy to the people around him, I wish he'd know it too. 

I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 7 Dad" 2007 / RADOCAJ

I used to volunteer at lots of schools art programs come to think of it. Ayisha was apart of an after-school program I used to work at, we submitted some of her work to our University children's art exhibit. She won a Young Artists Merit Award and a free scholarship to our University Young Artists Studio Saturday Arts Program. I don't remember what school she went to and I never saw her again after I took her picture this last photo of her. She'd be around fifteen years old now, and I hope shes doing well. 

I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 10 Ayisha Comes to Tell Me Some Good News" 2007 / RADOCAJ

Rachael was the real inspiration and the driving force behind this series, and naming it as well. When I took this photo she was making a wish on a dandelion saying that she just wanted to stay here with her family all together and that we would be happy forever. I'd rather have been more present with her when she said this; in this fraction of a moment in time. Instead of peering through shutter at her. And remember her just as we were in this instant standing together talking in reality, in splendid live colors.  

I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 12 Rachael Makes A Wish" 2007 / RADOCAJ

You're a wonder, Wonder Woman. 

Original costume sketch for Wonder Woman TV series by Illustrator: Donfeld

For Lexi

I like video games, but zombies are scary to me so I can't play Resident Evil because I will have night terrors. I would however play them if the Zombie Nurses looked like this... I just think that I want a kinder, gentler zombie. 

"Nursie Poo" 2004 / RADOCAJ

So what happened in New Your City? Perhaps I'll finish that story another time.

Against all of my better judgment I had agreed to go up to New York City

The View from Carmen's Office, NYC Alma Rad 2013

And the whole thing started as harmlessly enough with a troll. You know those trolls, the ones that used to be under bridges eating the odd billy goat. Now trolls wait around every corner of the internet waiting to pounce-assured that they are clever, smug in themselves for being such a smart little troll.   I do like trolls generally, I am guilty of meme squee, and sometimes cheering a troll on. Mostly because no person should take anything so seriously that you can't laugh a little at it. Unless it goes against my personal credo of "Do no harm." I'll have your back. You will find that on the internet that there are many authors who are sometimes either too crazy, nasty, or suborn to see any humor in anything; that you could leave it to a good troll to zest up a thread.  

But in my case there was this one troll in particular who was perched on my sisters Facebook wall spewing all that negative stuff that just makes you feel bad about life. A mean person, so happy to share in every way how you are wrong and they are right, and aching to be knocked down off their high horse.  An irritant you just want to fleck off of the skin of humanity; a human mosquito. 

Fernández Anaya helps Mutai toward the line 2013 / CALLEJA 

My sister had innocently shared the story of Basque athlete Iván Fernández Anaya who on the 2nd December in a long cross-country race  noticed as it was nearly concluded that near to the end of the race a Kenyan runner Abel Mutai –the certain winner of the race-had mistakenly pulled up and began to stop running about 10 meters short the finish line, thinking in error that he had already crossed the line. Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai’s mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind and guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first. My sister, in all her infinite sweetness, posted the story because as she said, "...it  just reminded me of Lightning McQueen pushing the King across the finish line - because it was the right thing to do." from Disney/Pixar's 'Cars'. AND it is, AND it was! True, noble and kind all rolled into one.

Cars 2006 Disney/Pixar

The troll took this time to pounce on my sister saying that the victory is tainted because of Anya's actions, that it is un-sportsman to take an attitude that one should help out an opponent, how could people even consider glorifying such an egregious behavior in competition, and so on with other remarks that further illustrated that they had missed the point of the article completely. And I was flushed with anger that someone was picking on my sister so I stood up to the anonymous troll, picking on my cool sister. I surprised myself with what I said too.

"Do sports even mater in the grand scheme of things? ...gestures of kindness and compassion do; small ones and big ones. Especially when actions like that resonate with an individual. So much so that competition and self fulfillment become irrelevant, and encouragement, self-less-ness and community takes its place. ...An athlete somewhere was moved to do something for another competitor because he felt it was the right thing to do. And so what if it cost him a better time or placement, he did what he thought was right. Lincoln once said "My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure." I think Anaya, has found contentment in what others call a failure."


Felt good to do it too. And I tried my best to defend her ideals honorably on the battlefield of the inter-webs. The troll was banished, and harmony was restored unto Facebook. Soon after my sister called me up to shoot the breezes, and suddenly asked me to join her in New York City for the night. 

I immediately said yes, just to take on an adventure. Than rationalized the whole trip for 2 reasons: one since I hadn't had a chance to see her really over Christmas or New Years. Second it was a relativity simple cover to get me up there to get some quality sketch work done for some art projects I would like to get under way. Plus the added bonuses; I could meet up with people from college that were up there, go to museums, and do all kinds of fun things. I had forgot almost completely that I hated New York city.

The Train-view of Sunrise over Bridesburg, Pennsylvania 2013  / FISHER

I hate New York City. I've been left there on school trips, been grifted of my money, patience, & time, been swindled by their swine, and have more than once been convinced that I was going to die at the hands of a giant purple dinosaur there. Against all of my better judgement I had agreed to go up to New York City--a city that I despise, just as much as it is indifferent towards me. But I had to go into the Lion's Den for some reason, I felt like my contempt towards the city made me have to. So I scrambled to ready myself for the next mornings train.

Changing What We Think About Education : The Necessity of Creativity

I found this TED video while I was still a student at the University if the Arts. The speaker in this video is Sir Ken Robinson and he speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies. He is a funny and poignant speaker and he speaks to the core need of creativity in education.

Then as I still do everyday, I wonder about how people interact with art and how they incorporate creativity into their daily lives. 

I think also that often people forget a lot about what they learned in school; not the subjects or facts necessarily, or lessons and homework specifically. The majority of the time those fundamental tiny tidbits of information about maths, science, history, grammar and so on tend sink in just do the sheer repetition of daily lessons. I am referring to the act of people forgetting what their environment of education has taught to them.

I believe very strongly that the role of educators is to develop a students natural talents so that the student can flourish, as it very well should be. But our society globally does not do this in education due to in part standardizing curriculum and testing. Of course immediately most people could site the very few exceptions of magnet schools, alternative practiced education, home or cyber education--but I can not honestly not incorporate these into my statement, because these are not services that are available to every child.

Education is something that people hold very close to themselves on a personal level. We are all the products of someones classroom. Were we taught there to seek out a path to happiness through our innate given talents, or were we taught to repeat passive knowledge? Speaking generally of children, if they don't know something they will try it out; to see how something works or to make something that is new to them. Children aren't afraid early on in their life of making mistakes, and we currently have in place an education system where mistakes are the absolute worst things that a person can make.

Mistakes are not creative, but experiencing mistakes are the best way to create creative solutions; this is they way you create originality. Children at a young age usually after preschool or kindergarten are made to sit and absorb knowledge.  Sir Ken states that "children are educated from the waist up...until you get to their heads" there education says focused until they leave school. He raises an excellent point that in all education systems there is a hierarchy of subjects: maths, sciences, humanities and so on and that arts are down at the bottom of the list. And even then there is a hierarchy to the arts--art and music are at the top of the list and that drama and dance are at the bottom. Why? Wouldn't have that been amazing to have learned dance as intensively as you had to learn algebra? 

I would like us not to forget how we were taught in school; either you feel your scholastic experiences being positive or negative. Keep them with you. Always learn, always cultivate new experiences, and never beat yourself up when failures occur. Failures occur so that you can succeed at a later time.