glass candy factory

i was privileged to be able to play a small part in anthony d'amico's glass candy factory -- a one-night-only show of his incredible glass art. the show included music and some dramatic bits. i can't say much more about it - you just had to be there.

thank you, anthony, for an amazing experience.

merging art & tech

i will be teaching a music & technology "camp" to kids in a few weeks (and also robotics in another session). i have been working on a prototype for a project. it is inspired by Lorenzo Bravi's "Hit the Beat" project. more details to come later when it is finished (plans and code will be posted online). the basic idea is to build a percussion box / drum machine. we will build the instrument, add design elements to it, and program it to play a rhythm.

here is a video of the cardboard prototype, and another of the birch wood prototype.

it is powered by an Arduino, which is controlling a solenoid. 

some recent portraits

some recent portraits done at the Tuesday Night Group, done a couple of weeks apart but using similar palettes (my remaining paint from the top one was used to make the background for the bottom one):

blank canvas

getting ready to take away the blankness from this canvas:

watch this space for more to come!

bold and bright rhino

here is the final version of "shoot me to save me," the rhino painting entered into the Bold and Bright show in falls church.

rhino series - in progress

i continue to work on the rhino paintings. currently i have 6 rhino paintings in work. here are four of them:

the one in the lower right corner has been entered in a local show that opens March 8th. the show is called "Bold and Bright" and i think this rhino will fit right in.  :)

more info about the show: http://www.fallschurcharts.org/home

rhino series

i have recently started a rhino series. last month the government of Namibia allowed the the Dallas Safari Club to auction off a permit for a hunter to kill a black rhino in one of Namibia's "game parks." the proceeds from the auction will go to the park to supposedly help preserve other rhinos there. a "hunting consultant" won they bid by writing a check for $350,000. there are so many things about this situation that baffle and intrigue me:

• the whole "game park" system where animals are somewhat protected, yet poachers readily shoot whatever they want to and herds are frequently "culled" to keep populations at some ideal level. geez - just try parsing the rhetoric and rationalization in that sentence. 
• rhino horns (and tiger penises, and probably other strange body parts) are in huge demand in asia because there is folklore that those appendages help impotent men get hardons. who are all of these men who can't get it up? do they really thing this stuff works? i want to see the proof. otherwise, just join rush limbaugh and others and buy viagra. it's cheaper and more effective.
• apparently there are a lot of "hunters" who want to kill exotic animals and mount their heads on walls. (hmm, may tie into the whole penis thing mentioned above.) what is this desire to shoot other
• these game park hunts are like shooting fish in a barrel:  the animals are spotted by park "rangers" or someone, the hunters are driven out to where the animals of interest are, and using a high-powered, scope-fitted rifle, from a safe distance the "hunter" kills (assassinates) the animal. and somehow, the "hunter" is willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars and feels better about himself/herself after shooting a rare species. where is the hunting? did the parents of these sorry humans buy sports trophies for them, then tell them "good job?" instead of hunters, let's just be honest and call them "lazy wealthy exotic animal killers."
• oh, and the meat from the exterminated rhino will be given to a local village for food. so that's a feel-good thing. give some poor folks the rhino carcass so a recreational animal killer can tell jesus he's done a good thing by feeding the poor. will the recreational animal killer continue to feed the village week after week, or is this one-time thing enough?

those are just some of thing quandaries swirling around my brain at the moment. here are some initial painting sketches and underpaintings of rhinos. these are all 16x20 oil on canvas paper. i am doing them in preparation for a larger piece, but still not sure of the composition.