CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

Sometimes you're lucky enough to find things that speak of art in every way. Some even have a history and legacy to them. Such was the case when I stumbled on a packet of Taisho Era letters, stamps and envelopes. They looked beautiful on their own, but I knew they could be made into even more artful items. The surprise though was learning the legacy they also carried with them. The Taisho Era was named for Emperor Taisho lasting only from 1912 to his death in 1926.  Despite being in ill health during his reign, he recognized that Japan must modernize and move beyond traditional ways. He had learned much from being exposed the West during World War One when Japan fought on the allied side. The Taisho Era was marked by significant modernization, cultural change, and the burgeoning of arts. However, it put too much wind in the sails of Japan, leading it toward expansion and conquest.  You ponder all this as you work with the items, thinking of the art. Realizing you can’t change ...

  It's human nature to want to match things up, weave them together, even write a story about them. When you wander with your camera, magic doesn't always happen. What you see and experience lives only in isolation. Residing in your photos as unfinished business. Yet, these things call them abstract or not still have an art about them. While not encompassing a string of thoughts, they are part of what you find important in the world. Some you play with attempting to extract meaning and being. Most though just are.... Lancaster Tractor Trailer Reflection  Portland Mail Boxes and Poster Charlotte Hospital Awning Cotswold Village MarK - Charlotte Atlanta Wall

  I have a camp chair in the trunk of my car. Sometimes, I carry a kit of watercolor pencils and always a camera. All to remind me to put the busy world on hold. To pull off the road and just sit, contemplating a found scene in life. You're never sure what that is, but you are always searching. It’s tough to block out the traffic, the phone calls, the blare of the radio news. Once in a while though, you find a place to pull over. You unfold the chair and just sit. What you are hoping for is the question. Maybe, something or someone entering the scene that would foster a story. Colors that would grasp you enough to sketch, applying a bit of water to make the hues sing. Maybe just a person stopping to talk about what you are doing or thinking. Most of the time, none of these things happen. You still take a photo though. When you get home, you look at it reminded that you were there and wise enough to stop...

  The sunny day found me out wandering with my plastic $53 HOLGA Camera. My other cameras were far more sophisticated, producing perfect pictures. But, here I was on this beautiful day with the HOLGA, a camera many regarded as a toy. Still, I would meet new people attracted by the look of the camera. None of which would stay around long enough to learn the mystery, history and fame of it. I also knew great photos would be only once in a while. The camera just had too many faults to produce anything consistent. That was in fact the great appeal to it, the blurs, light leaks, and film quality of the results. It had a cult following among Retro fans. Ones led by generation Z who had never known anything without the immediate feedback of a display screen. There was none of that with the HOLGA. A film camera the required processing and time to see the results. They were all different than anticipated. Sometimes you forgot to take off the lens cap or advance the film producing double exp...

  It’s so rare these days to find the artful special item. One that is real, has traveled the world, and bares the marks of life to prove it. Too often you find yourself in a gift shop atracted to things, only to turn them over and find “Made in China.” So when you do find something of beauty that is special to your eye, you want it. A question lingers though, do you have a place on the wall for it?  As a collector of found objects, you often find yourself at this juncture. Should you take this wornderful thing from the world or leave it there for others. The travel author Paul Theroux once advised at each place, choose only one item to buy. That way you will remember the rest even more….

  Bringing back interest to our cities is a hot topic. Too often overlooked are the value of small unique places. Ones that set the place apart from others. Katarina Mall in her article “Capitalism in the Cracks” for Reason Magazine addresses this challenge well. She describes how Japan works with districts to promote all types of enterprise, especially in the small places including alleys often not possible with city planning in this country. Think back on a recent visit to another city, what do you remember about it. Was it the giant development that squashed a neighborhood just for another strip mall or ditto market. Maybe, but more likely it is for a unique place you found. Often, these are small places.  It mighr be Sun May Co. a tiny asian gift shop at 5 Canton Alley S in Seattle, or Commonwealth Used Books at 9 Spring Lane in Boston, or Daiso a Japanese variety store in the basement under an escalator of the old Woolworth building in Vancouver, or Collectors Nook a stam...

  Sometimes you have to take an image, even though it doesn't fit anywhere. Await it does for the right time to belong to a passing thought or theme.... Factory Wall, Great Falls SC LA Under the Bridge, Portland OR Hidden Downtown Mall, Charlotte NC

  I stood outside the dollar store with my bag full of treasures. Then I thought about my image, what would people think. Still there were plenty of advantages to going to the dollar store in these blurry uncertain times. First, with inflation, your likely to meet your friends there, all hiding between the aisles. Secondly, you feel like a zillionaire, one capable of buying out the whole place for $1. The disorganized clutter of the place speaks hidden treasures in every aisle. Perhaps most importantly, you can find art there if you look. Small things that with a little creativity become wonderful art works. The gold rimmed picture frame, the little plastic box, the art board and multitude of filler beads and bobbles.  So I drag them home, play with them throwing away most, the cost is nothing you know. Still once in awhiles something of note appears. What to do this those artful works? After all you don’t want to explain where they came from. So you establish a gallery of Dol...

  I filled up the tank of my hybrid and started out of the gas station. A look at the dash stopped me. It read 629 miles to empty. To the East was the ocean, to the North the giant east coast cities, to the South the low country and the grade B movie that is Florida. To the West, was the rest of the country where I had lived most of my life. It had been too long since I had been on the road. They say with age that your world becomes smaller. It’s true in some ways. You don’t walk as far or as well as you used to. A few medical detours take their toll. Your just not as sure about things as you used to be, maybe life has shown you too much. But I remembered when I did live out west and was young. How you thought nothing of driving eight hours from Seattle into the high desert to find peace and dreams. Where had those years gone? All these things weighed on my mind, still there were new places to go in the East. Maybe a story or two to write. I looked at the dash 629 miles to empty…

  "PAPER NOTES" - Great Falls SC (collage of old bank notes and found wall in vacant lot)

  Sometimes you see things that grab you. Your not sure why. The camera clicks though, but they just don’t fit anywhere. Lingering in the back recesses of your mind, they haunt you. Finally, you sit and review each image. Still theres no real fit with anything. They just are what they are. Just like the other no fits of your life. Ones you will always ponder, but are somehow you.

  I  stood looking at the wedge shaped piers that held the Fremont bridge in place. Only the industrial land beyond. You could hear the traffic above and feel bridge moving to balance it all. It was the farthest place you could walk in Portland, Slabtown they called it. Laying between the tree lined NW district and the river, west of the tony Pearl District. The long walk from downtown left one tired, but happy for it. The Cities unfinished edges were here. The walls not yet sanded and painted nice into restaurants and shops. The name, Slabtown, coming from the discarded pieces of wood after the sawing of timber. The city left unfinished space here, perhaps to sort out what it had done. Space to pause, reflect and think. There were already the first signs of development attempt. The Montgomery Ward building, came and went quickly. The rest of the district still just torn edges. The walls carrying half messages, scrapes and it’s own form of art. I turned to look at the bridge...

  New horizons rise on the hopes of a small town. Murals are painted on the wall, history brought back, small shops reopen. But, not all horizons last, the town slowly falling back to the way it was. Still it has stories to tell if you listen and colors rich if you stop. I wandered the streets, hearing soft jazz coming from around the corner. I did not need to turn and look. It was Terry who fixed things and detailed cars, a personality that knew no small town bounds. Still he stayed here mated with the way of life, still looking for horizons...

Frank wore worn blue overalls, his strength defied his older years. Most just knew him as the metal man who owned a scrap yard under the freeway. The yard full of metal, some in barrels, leaned against the wall and larger pieces on the ground. They came from every source imaginable, dismantled ships, demolished buildings and factories gone.  He grew accustomed to the roughness of the material and his life, even fond enough to attach a name to some of iron pieces. Names like waterfall, desert lines, sand storm. He sold the iron to scrap buyers, contractors, architects and the occasional artists. Frank favored them the most. Their study of the metal pieces led him to think they saw the same specialness in them that he did. Frank kept to himself aside from the occasional stop for a beer at Stellas. Most evenings he would head back to the small house on the River. The one with the garden in back. His wife gone from the cancer five years now. Still he worked each evening in her gard...

 

 

 

  The South is rich with small towns, all seemingly with their own history and quirks. My camera without fail always pulls me out to see them. Some surprise and some disappoint, but are always interesting. I really didn’t expect much when I headed to Gaffney, traveling up US Route 29. After all how much could expect from a town where Wikipedia lists the most notable person as a fictional one. Yes, Frank Underwood the President in “The House of Cards” claimed he hailed from there. The show features a few scenes from the town when he went back to visit.  The town surprised me though. The colorful heritage building and mix of people out about trying to make it or start a new life. The Auto Detail person Terry who was trying to save enough money to have his own building. He had a winning smile and would get there someday I knew. The Museum and library still anchoring important places. Life still thick and rich here. The town like so many started to fade away when Interstate 85 pas...

  Perhaps in our freest moments, we find ourselves talking out loud rather than just to ourselves. Letting loose of thoughts we normally try to sort out in our mind first. They may start out rooted in logic, but grow tp wild wanderings of subject and interpretation. Bystanders may take a step back from all this. Sometimes though, the wildness thrown off yield surprising life truths. The work of artist Cy Twombly may have been the best example of this. He freed himself to create art by scrawls on paper or fancifully simple renderings of scenes. Linking what otherwise seem like unrelated objects. Somehow though his work catches your eye, making you think about its meaning or even being. Ode to him, may we all grow to be as free as he… Drawings by David Young in Ode to Ty Twombly  

  There is a quiet media revolution in advertising going on. Rooted in finding alternatives to the “super flat media viewing age.” One noted example of this is advertisers increasingly using split screens. Often one side is playing a sporting event and the other the advertisers message. On the surface not related to each other. The technical name for this form of presentation is the Diptych. Some actually feel it’s annoying, but there is mental magic at work here. Diptychs have their roots in art presentations that date back to medieval times. Painters would create different religious scenes on wood panels and then link them together. When both sides of Diptych are taken together, they illuminate different perspectives. The viewer is left wondering what the common elements are. Today’s marketing goal is to get people to pause, to think, to absorb the message fully. And most of all remember it. Banksy the street artist often uses Diptychs, perhaps the most famous one the girl reachi...