CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

  It's probably just a male thing, waiting for your wife at the mall. You've seen all the fancies and been to the Apple Store. Now you just sit and wait, first with anticipation, then concern and finally just growing old while you wait for her to emerge....

  THE ART OF FOUND ART - sometimes it just happens, hidden in a corner of an off beat bookstore, discarded torn pages and scraps, $5 for a bundle. You sense there is art buried there. You find old prints forgotten in the bundle. You add a few brush strokes learned from art wandering, a touch of digital magic and imagination. Part from an ever lost book to the world, part from skills found, maybe a view you only see. Maybe art found.

The bare lot stood silent, not saying anything. As if waiting to be called into the wealth on the right side of the tracks. The train though seemed to block its way, lingering on the tracks, seemingly never moving. The traffic rerouted over bridges far from the lot. I wondered would anyone ever want the lot, would people come there. I walked across the street to a small place, The Common Market, ate a sandwich, mingled with people and had a cup of their coffee chip ice cream. All the time looking at the lot across the way, but not worrying anymore…

  Simple things sometimes reveal special beauty in their detail. Beauty often overlooked.

 The parking lot half empty, just like the strip mall still painted in dark red. The owner having done everything they could to attract new tenets. But as you turned and looked, a large freeway sign dominated the horizon, pulling your attention away. As if to speed the dying...

Loneliness is at an all time high. The APA (American Psychiatric Association) reported over 30% of adults feel lonely. Malls are one place people go to escape loneliness, but often don’t find it there. You can be with hundreds of others in a modern mall and still feel alone, they lack opportunity for social interaction. Even leaving with an arm full of new purchases can still leave your soul empty for the experience.  Diane Ionescu in her article “The Mall is Dead - Long Live the Mall” points out this is far from the original thinking of how malls should be when they first appeared in the 1950’s. The original designer of malls, Victor Gruen envisioned the mall as a recreation of a European village with a roof. A place to shop, find services and socialize. As malls prospered and grew, space became too valuable to allow room for socializing. When these over commercialized malls suffered big box store failures, they became dying or dead malls. There was noting left to draw people. Now the

  Sometimes the crush of the traffic and city challenge finding the peace you need to take a photo, make a drawing or even think. Still you continue to search for the hidden corners of the city, where things left behind inspire in small ways…

  Box trucks are as much a part of the city as any mode of transport. Ideally designed for congestion and narrow alley loading docks. Some of the most iconic are yellow colored trucks, often without a name or logo on the side. They conjure a certain mystery as to origin, intent and what they carry. There found parked most anywhere, adding to that mystique. Some of these trucks are 20 years old, usually linked by GMC or Ford chassis. They often play parts in movies such as The Pocket or crime sagas. The moving industry was the first to invent and use the box truck. It sprang from the habit of apartment dwellers stacking their belongings on top of each other before a move. The box truck configuration a perfect fit for such moves.  The yellow trucks you find about are often linked to the history of Yellow Trucking. Originally formed in 1929, by the owner of Yellow Cabs. It grew from one truck to become the largest trucking firm in the US with 22,000 trucks, 600 loading docks and 35,000 em

  You want to write more about this place. Hard scrabble, sitting along route 521. Write more than there is, mystery lingers here. So much of Kershaw’s fate linked to the soil, How it seems the whole town is headed that way. Fading away except for the distant gold glitter that remains. They say 2,000 live here, but there is no bustle on the streets. Just worn out sides of buildings once used, The place made by the railroad, rail lines that don’t stop here now. Just a few grain cars straddle its tracks. The gold mine a few miles away, digging away at the earth. But crops of soybeans the real gold now. They turn the fields purple and red in the fall,  Unlike gold, they come back time and again. Harvested and hauled by bin trucks that line up. They take little of the earth, need no chemicals to grow. Replenish the soil with nutrients for other crops. The market always waiting for them. The processing plant at the end of town, turning them to oil. You never see the

  I could write a lot about the South. How it's more rural and forested than you think, how two lane roads travel to small towns, some forgotten or forgetting. The warmth of the people you meet, the quiet distance they will keep. The splendor of a Southern Spring, the sultry summers that make you pause, deep colors of fall fields, the cold winds of Winters with barren trees. New industry with promise and jobs. Old industry in vacant places with people left behind. Sometimes though, you find a simple shop or store and look in the corners, the story of the South is all there. I could write a lot about the South, but not tell what you will find…

What is a library today? They seem to exist in some middle ground between tech driven digital media and hard cover books. The later seems heavy and old, but they are the core of any library.   It’s not really called Library 5, more formally known as the Mecklenburg South County Regional Library. It’s just the 5th one I visited trying to find a good group of art books and place interest. This one did not disappoint.  The colors and lights were bright. The library is surrounded by the canopy trees of the Piper Glen District, the windows almost seem like they bring the trees in. I would call the building mid century modern, others might say Bauhaus or even Brutalism. Regardless it is done well with lots of unique room and places to study, read, meet and even craft. Yes, they have a “Makers Space” room with a 3D printer. I stayed there enjoying the place longer than I expected, leafing through photography books and people watching. The decor distinguished the place and provided encouraging

  The Holga 120 medium format camera was designed by Lee Ting-Mo in Hong Kong. It started production in 1982 with hopes of it becoming a cheap camera for the masses in China. However, with the advent of 35mm film, the camera never achieved its goal and faded from the market place. In recent years, the camera gained a second life. Photographers became attracted to its imperfections, light leaks and surrealistic images it produces. It’s still cheap usually costing less than $65. You don’t get instant results. You never know what the image shot initially looks like because it’s a film camera. You have to wait for the processing. Once in a while you find art, imaginations and treasures in the shots you get back. All gathered while wandering in the world with your Holga

Your personal thoughts and reflections deserve a better place than being buried in your business tools, like your phone. Maybe it’s because business demands perfection, where your thoughts demand freedom.  Being Present Minded is key to getting in touch with your thoughts. Modern electronic devices take you away from that, there are just too many distractions. All this is a reason to craft what I call an art kit. During the workweek, it can be as simple as a small notebook. One you pull out of your brief or purse to jot a hand written note, record a passing reflection, a saying, even a sketch on. I find these marks of your being more frequently resourced than electronic notes. There is an art to them, that art is you. On the weekend, that art kit can be expanded to a small day pack, one that might include that same notebook, but also a plastic camera, art coloring pencils or even brush pens. Perhaps these are defined best by the plastic camera. Film or digital, most are under $65 and s

  So much of your day is already dictated, the have to do’s, the commute, the work. Early morning though is yours, all be it brief. You look at some art, ideas flow in you head, you want to see them come alive. You pull open your art studio door, grab a few of the burgeoning art tools and go for it. This is not an hours long affair, it is all about quick, fast, let it rip. Freedom the rest of the day won’t have. Art brush pens are so good for this. They never produce fine art, nothing approaching real paint and fine brushes. Some illustrators work wonders with them. For the rest of us, they are just slashes of color on paper. You play with a blank sheet of paper, making marks here and there. Your hand wanders, filling in colors. You get silly, even stupid in your efforts. Standing back, your not sure what you have. It’s certainly not a Picasso or Jackson Pollock. You decide to call them Pooluckas, a gathering of spirit if you will, maybe art, maybe not. They are yours though. You are h

  I’ve often wandered the city trying to find a quiet corner, a place apart, only to find myself there….

  Maybe it's the fast times we live in, how seldom do we look back. Art can be found there if we take the time. It might be a discarded building, a brand, a method of doing business, or something else that can be redeployed. It's all about learning how to see the art...

  You never want to overlook opportunities in the corners of business. For many years, few paid much attention to a railroad (L & C) that ran from Lancaster to Chester in SC. Once it served the booming textile industry, but with much of that gone its cars sat underused on various sidetracks.  The Stagger Act passed in 1980 allowed large rail companies to sell off unprofitable lines like L & C. Pete Claussen, a lawyer who loved trains, recognized an opportunity. He had already purchased other short lines to form his Gulf and Ohio Railroad. He paid $3 million for the 62 mile L & C. This worked out to $1 a foot, less than what a Lionel Toy Train set sells for. Along with the line came valuable industrial land. Today, L & C serves burgeoning new industry along its route including Giti Tire, Gallo East Coast Winery, New Indie Mill and a chemical plant. The line connects to the CSX and Norfolk Southern national lines. There are always rough edges of business that are overlook

  The origins of this word were highlighted in a recent article “Just Press the Button, we do the rest” in C-41 magazine. The term is most associated with George Eastman, a bank teller with an interest in photography. Eastman went on to invent paper film, establish Kodak and launch the Brownie Box Camera in 1888. It came with a roll of 100 film paper, no viewfinder and simple operation. Eastman promoted the camera as one for the masses, free of the formalness and perfection of salon photography. A true point and shoot camera. He needed a nickname for all this and found it in a term, “Snapshot,” coined by a famous hunter Sir John Herschel. He used it to describe a riffle shot taken without aim to capture a quick moving target. Perhaps I found this article most interesting since it describes my too frequent pushing of the shutter and often imperfect results. So just call me a “snap-shooter,” but at least one with some history behind me.