Given the abysmal level of cultural literacy in the U.S. at present, it is utterly astonishing that some 50 years ago a nationally televised popular show like Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concert” series even existed on mainstream TV. By comparison, today’s television broadcasting only provides further evidence that we have slipped into the New Dark Ages. On January 18, 1958,…
This is but one of the drawings I made depicting the world-renowned Hollywood Boulevard in the summer of 1980. My pen & ink urban landscape described the celebrated street as I had observed it in the 80s, before it was transformed by waves of gentrification that began in the mid-1990s. My artwork portrayed an elderly resident waiting for a bus…
I am pleased to announce that a silkscreen poster I created in 1987, To Protect and Serve the Rich – Jail the Homeless, is part of the exhibit, Prison Nation: Posters On The Prison Industrial Complex, held at the UC Merced Kolligian Library at the University of California, Merced. The show travels to five other venues in California’s San Joaquin Valley…
The American poet Ogden Nash once wrote, “Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn’t it, of a long line of proven criminals?” This past year certainly had its share of iniquitous events, in spite of that, we can still find evidence of joyous affairs and incidents in the wreckage of the year now passing. Yes… “life is good.” As…
When I was a 10-year-old in 1963, the very first record I purchased on my own was a recording of the Peer Gynt Suite by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). It may come as a surprise to some but these days, more often than not, I listen to classical music while I work at my easel. Being a longtime devotee…
With scarcely any coverage on TV news, multinational oil company BP pleaded guilty on Nov. 15, 2012 to 14 criminal charges related to the death of 11 oil rig workers and the corporation having spilled over 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties for the Deepwater…
The 2012 exhibition AKA Peace was a primary example of the limitations of much of the so-called “political art” in our current period. Curated by U.K. artist Jake Chapman, the show was held at The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England, from Sept. 25 to Sept. 30, 2012. The intent of the exhibit was to give decommissioned AK-47 rifles…
