Media

Bewegten Bild

Below is a playlist of some of my video work that I have posted to Youtube. A lot of this was done with only fun or some friends in mind. However, I think that these videos speak to my aesthetic all the same. Enjoy!

Aktenmappe: My Art Portfolio

At the Convention 2

Sharpie and watercolor on paper

$75

At the Convention 1

Sharpie on paper

$100

Tour De’Leh

Acrylic on canvas

$75

Dreams

Acrylic, house paint, puff paint, oils, charcoal on dry wall

$300

Sunflowers

Copper plate print

$200

Sunflowers

Mixed Media

$75

Sunflowers

Acrylic, house paint, and calligraphy ink on canvas

In the collection of Luke Cypher

Ghosts of Dyscrasia: Light

Linoleum block print

Not for sale

Ghosts of Dyscrasia: Blue

Mixed media print

$200

Ghosts of Dyscrasia: Black

Mixed media print

$300

Ghosts of Dyscrasia: Yellow

Mixed media print

$200

Ghosts of Dyscrasia: Past

Linoleum block print

$300

Ghosts of Dyscrasia: Red

Mixed media print

$350

DNAin’t

Mixed media sculpture

Not for sale

99

Polaroid Quilt

$200

Fall

Mixed media

$50

Crooked Dames

Acrylic on canvas

In the collection of Luke Cypher

John

Charcoal, oil pastel, and watercolor on paper

$100

Winter

Mixed media

$25

I Am Here To Eradicate the Practice of Coloring Inside the Lines — Detail

Mural

Located at ARTica Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Baggage Claim

Interactive mixed media sculpture

Not for sale

 

 

 

 

 

Fürsprache

The Kickstarter campaign is going really well. This post is a shout out to Evan Niewoehner–a recent donor and forever friend.

Evan was part of the crew from Grove City College that recently came to my home to film a short on my arts career for a documentary film course. His footage was repurposed for the Kickstarter video.

Below is an outtake of Evan reciting Norse poetry.

Gepäck

Yesterday I traveled to Columbus, Ohio to paint during a showcase of the musical talents of new friend and kindred spirit, Jasmine Tate. Jasmine is good people.

Most of the time when I create, there is a specific concept, design, or a coupling of the two that I have resolved with some clarity in my mind and I make alterations to the original plan as the form, materials, and my own mood speak to me. Having a fourth voice speaking to my creation allowed for the piece to not be insular but extended to another form of expression and its expressors.

The co-creative community that yesterday evening became is what art is about.

Do not exist within a vacuum.

As Man traverses through life, he has to look at other people and realize that the things in them that he hates or loves the most are inside of him.

(Sorry for the Gender Words in the previous sentence, I just really want my writing to be concise and not waste time on things like “his/her,” “he/she,” and, ettsetterah.)

It was in the spirit of this idea that I took “Baggage Claim” to the concert yesterday. This piece was part of my first show. “Baggage Claim” is a suitcase laid open with soil inside of it. Participants are asked to write down a memory they want to let go of or a declaration for the future, fold the slip of paper and bury it with a seed inside the suitcase.

I now write to my public about this idea of community. As individuals, we have to remain open to that fourth voice. In so doing, we’ll extend to a new form of expression. And to do so with sound mind, we have to understand and detach from our past.

Please contribute to this fourth voice that I am asking to rise up through this project. Submit something that you want people to read, listen to, or look at and it can become part of this new song.

Abstrakt

Above is a detail from the recent community mural that I designed and led with Grove City College students and residents of the surrounding area as part of Project Okello’s community art event “Wells for Hope.” The event raised $800+ in funds for clean water in Uganda, and it raised the creative spirit within so many students.

It is so easy to stifle the desire to create. The day of painting the mural was one full of awkward stares at the three five foot by three foot panels.

“Oh, I’m not creative; I’ll just mess it up,” was the resounding chorus of my afternoon.

I sometimes think that the reason we are afraid to act or create is because we are afraid of what we will see of ourselves inside of what we do.

Art is story; it’s character. In realism, viewers and creators are able to see themselves in regards to the scene laid before them–they are one of the characters or they are in the scene watching it take place.

It is in abstract art that Man can become haunted by his inner workings because through great skill of the abstract artist, a scene or an idea of a scene is created that the viewer has to define through the guided eye of the creator.

There is a sort of swell to abstract art–it is revivifying and vibrant. But within the swell there is an ache–the pairing of tragedy and romance that is necessary for any work of art to become a great work of art.

And that says a great deal of life–not just in creating artwork but in acting in any of life’s spheres. In life there is great tragedy. But there is great romance.

So when we fear creating, getting out of bed, applying for a job, asking a radiant woman out on a date or being vulnerable with a lover, we experience that life is tragedy. But it is when we do the thing that we fear that we experience the romance, beauty, truth, and adventure of life.

And that is why I create.