THE EXPANSE

Tuesday, January 15, 2013.  I recognized this solitary vessel, floating in the broad expanse, alone and isolated from community.  Is it drifting or resting, bound for a destination or not?  Or could it be a pleasure boat, unmoored, but containing delights beneath its peaked roof.  See how the moon illuminates it on this night voyage with the secrets beneath.

THE SPIRITUAL GAVE BIRTH

Saturday, November 17, 2012.  A lost letter, a discourse gone astray, a page turned and torn, gone away from the writer, or the receiver.  I was between engagements, done with one, going to another and there was this correspondence, someone's ponderings on the spritual and the natural.  The natural seems to have the upper hand, eventually returning the idea to the spiritual.

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

Monday, October 29, 2012.  Even the fallen leaves have sought shelter, glistening in the corner of ramp.  Every color of them has come together, tossed about and blown asunder.  In the darkness, only the flash of my camera illuminates the red and the orange and shines on the yellow. They rest a bit, before they will be called again into the swirling pull of the next gust.

PHANTOM FENCE

Saturday, October 13, 2012.  The sun was so bright that the filigree pattern seemed as solid as the actual fence.  The delicate hues of the sandstone - blue, pink, gray - were enhanced by the solidness of this ephemeral image.

BENEATH THE SURFACE

Tuesday, September 11, 2012.  Walking down 9th Avenue to the barber I came upon the open steel sidewalk doors to the basement of an old tenement.  They've never been open before, and I have trod over this work countless times.  I wonder who left these there?  Was it someone from the current gallery or someone from the previous, Giant Robot?  I'm happy enough with either.  The neon colors dripping over with white paint - I like how it looks - snow falling on a mountain burnished orange by the setting sun.  And the other - love rising out of the depths.  I like that idea too.

TWIG WITH PHOTO

Sunday, July 15, 2012.  A random arrangement on the sidewalk across from my apartment.  It's early on a Sunday morning and already hot.  The image is pocked with pebble marks from the myriad feet that have trod over it since it fell from someones pocket.  Maybe it is a photo meant for a passport, but it was given to a careless lover.  Maybe it is a memento of a loved one, now lost, but weighted down by this slight twig until the image could be rescued by a passerby.  It is now saved - circle, line and square.

WALK

January 16, 2011. What a wonderful invention perspective is, and what a discovery it must have been for the first artist who used it. A slight shortening of a line, a twist of another and movement is both implied and understood. How random was this development, or was it just a matter of acute observation? In the middle of a crosswalk by Washington Square Park, this little figure may have once stood tall, but seems surprised by his flattening, as if a tire took him by surprise, or someones shoe did. He will soon fade into the debris swept up by the plow or shovel, but I saw him, and in seeing, the artist's work was observed.

GIANTS

November 27, 2010. They walk among men, giants by any standard, but they leave few markers, except maybe once in a while a footprint, just to remind us. This is the print of a powerful being, with feet and hands that have wrought great things. There is no proportion, they are just large, significant, important. The feet lead forward to achievement, the hands to fashion deeds of great majesty - leave the details to those creatures with finer features.

Mosque

November 1, 2010. Tucked into a nook of a building was this styrofoam creation. The owner may have been standing nearby, casually smoking, but he wasn't letting on that it was his. Is it an act of resistance or defiance? Or is it posing the question of who really pays attention to what is plainly visible? Do we only see what we want to see? I want to see what is inside, to see what lead you to create this, and what you want it to do.

COW ON GRANITE FIELD

October 19, 2010. Downtown on Murray Street hangs a solitary cow on a granite pillar. Is it the random act of a child idly applying a glued image, or the deliberate act of some downtown denizen in a fit of existential pique? The image is so small as to be easily missed, so there has to be an effort made to see it. The reward is in the finding and seeing.

SPLATTER

June 1, 2010. Outside Giant Robot. I wonder if they use these metal doors as a staging area, or did someone come by and say 'Hey, a clean canvas. Let's do something.'? Anyway, G.R. doesn't seem to mind, and a little color on a drap sidewalk is a welcome sight.

CHRISTMAS REVISITED

January 22, 2010. A side street between Church and Broadway. All that was missing for a sidewalk Christmas was a discarded tree, of which there are an abundance in my neighborhood. These bags, filled with the detritus of some office, apartment or shop, were almost sparking white in the morning sun, tied with red bows, scattered on grimy cement, walked past by a thousand hurried feet. The shapes were so holiday package-like that I very nearly wanted to open them and peer inside, half expecting to find some surprise. I didn’t do it. I walked past, then returned to snap this shot.