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THE ART ECONOMY

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  Eastway Crossing strip mall lies across a vast parking lot like a bleached whale, its major tenet long gone. Only a few small senate spaces are occupied. Life though still stirs there with the help of a creative group of artist entrepreneurs. Sometimes overlooked are the importance of artists to the economy. They will never move the dial in terms of major impact, but play a key role in changing a city. Artist seek out low rent and available space. You often find them flourishing in these edges of a city. Places in transition where their efforts and endeavors hold things in place until major change happens. Often these places grow with their efforts over time. Maybe as with Eastway, a small bookstore starts, then a coffee shop, a poetry bar, and surplus art supply. All built around painters, photographers and writers. A mix that attracts those seeking new experiences. The irony is that as these places on the edge redevelop, the artists are pushed out. Creative types are seekers wi...
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STUDY OF A HALLWAY

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  We live in a time when there is an abundance of things, but that also can mean an abundance of same. When it seems one shopping plaza with the standard fare of box stores abuts another one just down the street with the exact same offerings. The human spirit begs for more. You find yourself rejoicing at even small differences where the patina of the city has painted scenes to study in between the same…
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STREET PAINTINGS

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  Rain fell outside, but there was cheer in the museum workshop. We were there for painting lessons by Vivian. We each worked from an easel. We were assigned the task of bringing in a photograph, trying to reproduce it on canvas with paint and brush. I brought one of my “Wall Mark” photos, hoping to produce an abstract work. Perhaps the words of Leonardo DeVinci inspired me to document these marks with my camera. The patina left by the ebb and flow of life and traffic in the city. Leonardo wrote in “A Treatise on Paining” that staring at and studying closely marks unlocked creative genius. So I hoped anyway. Vivian ran her classes like a boot camp. She moved between our easels with a dramatic flare. To her, a painting was never  completely finished. He comments always pointed, urging more effort. We all feared her sending us to the side table to practice making color charts. She looked at the abstract painting rendition of my photo and back at the photo. “I like this photo, th...
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ALEX AND THE VANILA PLANT

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  ALEX AND THE VANILLA PLANT - Sometimes your camera can lead you to unexpected gems of life. Leslie is just a wide place in the road before jumping onto the freeway. The only notable thing, an abandoned convenience store. In the empty parking lot, a simple man had set up a card table and was selling small plants. His looks gentle like a man of soil and earth. I knew not where he grew his plants or his background, except for the aging faded car he drove. Still here he was, holding court to all that passed proudly showing his plants. He reached toward me with one, “smell it?” He ask. It smelled of vanilla, “that’s it,” Alex said. I later learned that growing a vanilla plant was not easy. You had to have the just right combination of Temperature, humidity and light. The last being the most important and delicate. The plant required 8 to 12 hours of bright light each day, but harsh light would burn the leaves and steal the special scent of the plant. He went to get another plant to sh...
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PLASTIC FORKS

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  The end of a rainy day of tasks. A grabbed meal from the market buffet. We sat at the eating shelf looking out at the parking lot. Our recycled boxes of food and plastic forks in hand. Maybe it was the rain, the colors, the cars passing and swaths of people blurred by the evening lights. It sent my thoughts back to other places we had been, Seattle, Paris, Vancouver. Places were it rained and the meals we shared. Were tables were elegant and forks silver. Elegant was not here. The chairs too short to be comfortable, maybe a Bezos thing, I don’t know. It was his store. A gruff short Russian sat four chairs away speaking Russian, sometimes slapping a hand on the eating shelve. His deals still happening. To the right a group of market employees sitting at a table. Contemplating their future I guessed, but not speaking of it. My thoughts returned to memories of the past, to maybe repeating those grand times. I wondered if she thought the same, but here we were. A common market, a pla...
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LOST AND FOUND

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  There is no Lost and Found Department for people. Thoreau once said, “Not until we are lost, do we begin to understand ourselves.” Sometimes though it’s difficult to reach that lofty goal. Feeling lost can seem like drowning. I ts been said that as many as 60% of people in the US feel loneliness. The reasons run deep. Rapid changes in society and the workplace can make you feel shoved aside, a failure, frozen in time. The digital world which pushes bounty and pleasure can leave you grasping for a foothold in the good life it promotes, when at the same time yours is crumbling.  There is no one solution for this. You have to create your own Lost and Found Department. One where you look up from what media is saying you should be. To recognize that it’s not all about money and fame. Where you realize the real currency to finding yourself are the love and relationships you build over time. Perhaps the best place to start is loving yourself.
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THE LAST BLUE NOTE

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THE LAST BLUE NOTE I watched again the travel show by Oliver Weber “On The Rails.” The opening episode where he takes the train across the deserts of Mauritania, the most impactual. Oliver makes copious notes in his journal as he travels, even running into another traveler who also journals, adding watercolor sketches between lines. There is so much in this that is me, trains, travel, the desert and art. I have the tools, the journals still blank, the kit of colored water color pencils, a brush to add water, and a pocket of money for the ticket. All things that could fill my life cup with to savor and share. It’s like listening to a jazz player waiting for the last blue note to finally stir you into going. The train from New Orleans will be in Charlotte at 5:49 am tomorrow. It will travel to NY City passing through DC, Phili, Durham, Richmond and places in-between. I wonder each morning why I am not on it. Maybe still waiting the last blue note before I go…  
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