FAQ

These are the questions I am most often asked when I am at the different art festivals:

What is my process?
My work is created using oil pastel which is a sort of waxy crayon. I put a layer of a light color down first and then a darker color over it. I use a stylus with a round metal ball on the end to cut into the darker color which reveals the lighter color and impresses some of the darker color at the same time. The technique is called Sgraffito (which, I am told, is Italian for scratch). If I do the “scratching” in one direction, it gives the piece a woodcut effect

Are they all my ideas?
Yes. I pride myself on that. When I first started doing this, there may have been a few that borrowed from common phrases that we are all familiar with, but I don’t promote those. I often hear or see ideas that I wish I would have thought of. I collect those for a possible later project but they will not be billed as being my own original thoughts.

Where do the ideas come from?
It’s hard to say. If I specifically sat down and tried to think of them, I’m not sure anything would come. They mostly come to me as I am driving or listening to talk radio or in conversations with people. My mind latches on to a notion and then takes some empirical leaps and bounds to arrive at something absurd or that most people experience in their daily lives, but haven’t taken the time to think about

You must be a fun guy to hang out with?
No. In fact it is quite the opposite. I am more likely to be quiet and I can be rather dull to be around. At least until you get to know me or I become more comfortable around you. There are funny people who pull things from the moment. I have to take the moment and digest it fully. Only then do the gems appear to me.

How did you get started?
I have always done art. I find that it relaxes me and is easier than being around people. It has been a constant friend and has helped me out of a lot of situations including some debt that I had amassed in my younger days. I started doing stand-up comedy after a rough break up with a girl who was doing stand-up (but wasn’t very good at it) I had a moderate amount of success with that but decided that I couldn’t handle the rare circumstance when I “bombed”. After I quit doing stand-up, the ideas kept coming and eventually just merged with the art.

Do images or ideas come first?
Typically the Ideas come first. I carry a recorder around so that I won’t forget them. Later, when I go over the recordings, only about one in ten ideas is worth doing anything with. I then assign an almost arbitrary image.

Which one is my favorite?
“Bob had a small head”. It’s the one that stared all of this

Do I do this full Time?
No I have a day job in sales, which, believe it or not, probably contributes more to the success of my art than anything

What is the clothespin Referee?
Another time my friend…another time

Have always wanted to stay up late enough or wake up early enough to see a meteor shower, and last night I finally did. I woke up at 2:00 am to make sure I was ready for a 2:30 peak. Earlier in the evening, I asked my 10 year old son Benjamin if he wanted me to wake him up for it. He seemed excited about it at the time, but when I woke him up, he rolled over and asked if I could video tape it. I has second thoughts about waking him up on a school night so that was probably for the best. However, The truth was, I wasn't sure if I could video tape it or not, because I wasn't certain what I was going to be looking at.

After checking to make sure there were no clouds and putting on my heaviest jacket to warm me from the cold weather that was in the teens, I went out into the back yard and stood and looked up at the sky. Again, I wasn't sure what I was looking for, and I didn't know what direction to look to find what I didn't know I was going to see. I did a slow 360 degree turn with one eye towards the sky and one eye looking out for anything anything that could be generally sneaking up on me in the dark. Then right about when I got to what I thought was the little dipper a quick flash shot across the sky above where I was looking. I wasn't sure at first, but then I saw a second one and knew it wasn't just my eyes. I never knew "shooting stars" were that fast, but the can travel as fast as 90,000 mph and be as small as a grain of sand. One of the highlights was a smal cluster of about five that seemed to be traveling together. Meteor showers occur when earth passes through debris that trails off from a comet. They happen a couple times a year and get their names from the constellations that they seem to emanate from. This particulare meteor shower was the Quadrantid meteor shower and is names after a constellation that is no longer used.

I am setting my calendar alarm to remind me of the next ones in April and may, because it was definitely worth getting up to see and hopefully it won't be so cold.

The Elephant House
or what I did on my summer vacation. We went to Cape Cod, MA this year for vacation on relative short notice, and then drove up to Boston. I always try to incorporate at least one art related activity anywhere I go. My research told my that Edward Gorey's house was on Cape Cod, so I put it on my wish list and crossed my fingers and. It turned out the Yarmouth was not to far from the whale watching boat tour we took on a somewhat rainy day.

Initially, only my ten year old son went in with me even though he didn't quite understand the word "macabre". Only to leave after joining an already in progress tour when he realized he would have to be quiet and was not allowed to touch anything.

I first became aware of Edward Gorey while helping construct a set for the the play "Gorey Stories" when I lived in Erie, PA during the 90's. His work is all black and white done with old fashioned dip well pens including simply drawn characters in front of elaborate Edwardian backdrops that seemed to have more thought and effort directed into drawing wall paper patterns and furniture. muc of the rest of my summer reading has been about Edward Gorey, and as always, I am interested to see how the lives of artists that I admire, mirror my own. The emphasis being placed on a deep need for solitude as part of the creative process with an bit of humor mixed in.

Speaking of solitude, I went to visit Walden Pond on this trip. I had heard tales of development surrounding the pond and expected to see Condominiums lining the shore. Massachusetts does an excellent job of making you think that there is nothing other than trees in the state. Likewise, Walden had somewhat pristine shores minus the shallow swimming designated area buoys. I could have spent a great deal of time there in quiet contemplation...but I have a family. Some of whom are bent on throwing rocks in any body of water bigger than a swimming pool. Also, Walden was not made for strollers or conversation or explaining

If you don't Buy The Seattle Seahawks Jerseys they try to sell in Pennsylvania:
Then they won't offer them any more.

I normally only see Philadelphia Eagles or Pittsburgh Steelers Jersey for sale in my area, but imagine my surprise when, out of the corner of my eye, there were, what appeared to be, a rack of Eagles jerseys gone wrong. Matt Hasslebeck and Lofa Tatupu Jerseys, Oh My! And with me being a Seahawks fan for some 25 years now, I had to hold back tears. I have often dreamed of walking in to a store and seeing such a thing. In fact a few months ago I had asked my son , who visits Washington state, every other year if such a magical flora of Seahawks Paraphernalia existed whenever he walked into a store, and imagined what that might be like. And to unexpectedly see it right here in Pennsylvania in front of my very eyes, I can cross that off of my bucket list, and imagine that somewhere in a Walmart in Tacoma Washington, some Eagles fan has just happened upon a rack of Michael Vick Jerseys

Thriftin'

One thing that people shopping in a thrift store probably do not need is travel luggage. Unless they are traveling in a time machine to a time to when these suitcase were in style.

But then again, why should anyone care how cool the container that you are using to carry your clothes is. Especially if you've got no place to go. Stuff a big steamer trunk in the overhead. It's like I always said; poor people don't die in plane crashes.

Oh, an btw, I go to thrift shops, but I rarely buy anything. But every now and then they have something cool that makes it worth stopping in

Just finished bottling 24 bottles of Rhubarb wine from 2009. I thought I let this go for too long in the in bulk storage but it turned out pretty good. Also of note are the 42 bottles of Appfelwein that are bottled, primed with sugar and will be carbonated in about three weeks. Bottling is the part of this hobby that is really a pain, but I love to look at them all lined up after its done

Ready to Kick some Butt

This is a photo from an uncontacted tribe somewhere in Brazil that is dangerously close to coming into contact with some rain forest munchin back hoe.

What amazes me about them is that they are being photographed from a plane or helicopter(neither of which they know anything about). They are looking up at something flying overhead that they have no idea about and rather than run, they grab their bows, arrows and spears with the intent of kicking it's ass, or eating it for dinner. I would be in the hut hiding and crying.

Then I took a longer look at the guy on the far right and found it difficult to believe that they have never come into contact with any humans other than immediate local tribes. Clearly he has been influenced by Marvel Comic Superhero webslinger Spiderman. Down to the red belt and booties. You can compare that to the only image of Spiderman that I could find standing up which was of a little kid in a Halloween costume. Try to find a picture of Spiderman where he is not in a squatted or swinging position. You can't do it