"YAT" Yard Art in New Orleans FRINGE Festival

This was one of my favorite things I've done all year. It started from a small drawing in my Moleskine.

For years immediately following college, I worked in several different positions for a medical relief organization called Carelift International. I started as a warehouse worker, then transferred to the Development Department where I assisted in fundraising and also acted as a one-man art department (handling all photo, website, and graphic design work). After I started teaching at North Catholic, I went back to the warehouse part-time when the teaching day was done. Carelift is gone now, but that job was an amazing learning experience. I got to travel to Ukraine (more about that trip HERE), and I met some awesome people from all over who gave me a whole new outlook on the world. One of these people was Damon Rosenzweig.

Damon was in Ukraine with me, a great dude. He'd done work with other medical relief organizations prior to Carelift. He's from New Orleans, one of my favorite places in the whole wide world. I visited New Orleans a few years back and really love that city, almost as much as I love Philly. I recently looked Damon up, wondering what he's up to these days. Turns out he's back home working with the New Orleans FRINGE Festival doing all kinds of great stuff. We have a similar festival here in Philly, also called the FRINGE. After an e-mail or two, Damon asked if I'd be part of the festival's "YAT Yard Art Tour," an exhibition of outdoor art all over the city. I was psyched. I recently finished and got approval for the 3' x 5' design (shown above) that will be printed on a vinyl banner and hung outside in New Orleans for the FRINGE. I sent the file to the printer today. Damon said he really liked the design, so I'm happy.

I started with a brush & ink drawing, then had to scan and change the line work to vector, given the size of the final printed banner. All of the color was done digitally. I just wanted to capture something lighthearted and laid back that celebrates the yards of the city and sends my love to New Orleans. I put a bunch of Pops, Kermit Ruffins, Professor Longhair, Meters, Clarence Frogman Henry, and Preservation Hall Jazz Band on my Ipod, had a few beers, and went town sketching a dragon at the BBQ (I am a BBQ maniac myself). Given that dragons are fire-breathing, we can assume this is a charcoal BBQ, even though we can't see the grill. No propane in my yard.

Here is a link to the Google Maps of YAT 1. When I get the photos on the banner being hung and my work being put on the Google tour map, I will post some updates.

Remembering 9/11/2001

I know a lot of people post/write/talk about their remembrances from that awful day, and I'm no different I guess. It was an experience shared by everyone. It's one of the only experiences like that in my lifetime, and it is definitely the most memorable.

I came across some work in a sketchbook I was keeping at the time that has only been seen by a handful of people. So I really wanted to post it here. I was with coworkers finishing a conference in Ukraine when the planes hit. I lost count of the days while I was waiting to come home, sitting in a tiny hotel room glued to cable news channels. Like so many others a world away, I was in anguish, hopeless, helpless. I drew the following image in my sketchbok. Weeks later when I was home, I photocopied and photoshopped in images from magazines and newspapers I collected in Kyiv and the airports on the way home.


I was asked to write about the experience for Spirit Newspapers. I also collected a bunch of neighbors' and family members' experiences for the paper. You can read the article by CLICKING HERE.

I have a few other images from that sketchbook. They all lack focus and none are complete. I was so depressed afterward, it took me a while before I really wanted to draw. However, the long flights home to Frankfurt, then to Philadelphia were so stressful. Everyone on the planes thought everyone else was a terrorist. So I had to do something to keep my mind occupied. I couldn't wait to be home. I drew this escapist piece of two drunk dogs staggering home through the streets, singing. Sadly, given what just happened, this was my idea of Heaven at the time: