Recent Things and Saved Stuff

I'm going to be doing a few drawing classes with my mentors group in Somerville on weekends. I'm done with Cheney's book and have been revisiting Mind-Forg'd Manacles William Blake and Slavery. Tony loaned it to me and it covers William Blake's work confronting American slave trade. The visuals are exciting and I'm working less and less with photo references and trying to work with memories and occasional video footage.  There's so much information in regards to the war and I'm going around in circles trying to impose a narrative when there's so many elements interconnected. I still want John Dean to see it and discuss it with me.



I was at Hibernian Hall in Roxbury recently to view The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Apparently several Swedish filmmakers came to the U.S. to document civil unrest in the 60's and filed interviews with several pivotal members of the Black Power Movement. From Bobby Seale to Stokely Carmichael to Angela Davis , many of the interviews were candid and off the cuff.   The footage shot in the ghettos was very heartbreaking especially that of the children and the sick.


I just recently attended a showing of Kostas Seremetis' work at the Fourth Wall Project on Brookline Ave.  This artist does EXACTLY the kind of work I'm most intrigued by. Juxtaposing pop cultural images with one another his Ready.. Set...Go.. exhibition featured logos and images from comic books to Rolling Stone magazines and created new and intriguing prints. His work for me is almost like a modern extension of Andy Warhol's work.  He took police wooden barricade pieces and made a giant star that hangs from the ceiling in the show.  According to Scott Fayner of the Phoenix,    Ian Ashbury of the Cult called Seremetis " the Rauschenberg of our generation". I'm not sure about if that could be considered true but I'm a fan of anyone that can add any new dimension to George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy .



My former student has begun college and promised to work on a sequel to the documentary on the scrolls when we have a full withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and I finish the writing and illustrations. As per discussion with my mentor Damon I've begun interviewing and illustrating veterans I've talked to  on the scrolls and tried to get their views on the wars and veterans benefits and support.