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Free… well at least in your mind.
I was asked to contribute a cover drawing for the Spring 2021 issue of the Santa Monica Review, and decided on a simple, black and white portrait drawing of a present-day young black woman. I named the likeness “Free.” The title is a declaration—that only when we break the chains in our minds do we step towards freedom. The oracle…
The Painter and the Poets
RATTLE is an important national literary publication that offers contemporary poetry, translations, reviews, essays and interviews. I’m pleased to announce that my painting, The Red Dress, appears as the cover for the journal’s Spring 2007 issue. RATTLE publishes print issues twice a year, but also releases web based versions as PDF downloads during the months of March and September. The…
Thanksgiving? No Thanks!
I created this cartoon of a turkey at his Thanksgiving feast when I was only 17 years old. My pen drawing titled, No Thanks!, served as the cover for the Southern California psychedelic “underground” newspaper, The Tribe. This particular edition of the pre-Watergate paper hit the streets on November 26th, 1971. Its anti-Nixon theme certainly didn’t win me any friends,…
Los Angeles in Paris: 1955-1985
The Centre Pompidou in Paris has mounted a major survey of art from Los Angeles, titled Los Angeles 1955-1985: The Birth of an Artistic Capital. The exhibit offers 326 objects produced by over 80 artists working in LA during a thirty year period, tracing the explosion of creativity unique to the city of my birth. The Centre Pompidou website describes…
“Malcolm X Speaks for Us”
If he had not been struck down by assassins on Friday, May 19th, 1965 – Malcolm X would be celebrating his 81st birthday with us today. [ Malcolm X Speaks for Us – Linoleum cut by Elizabeth Catlett, 1969. ] In 1969 African-American painter, printmaker and sculptor, Elizabeth Catlett, paid tribute to the slain freedom fighter with her linoleum cut,…
Making a Killing in Central America
In 1989 I created a pencil drawing titled We’re Making A Killing In Central America. The image depicts two of the many thousands of innocent civilians who were tortured and murdered in Central America during the bloody conflicts of the 1980s. To “make a killing” is an English idiom that means – to do something resulting in substantial financial success…