The Squeaky Wheel

Uh oh, I've been reading again.  I've been reading more about the history of Japan, its mythology, and their relation to mainland Asia, in order to understand the people better.  There are not many good books out there but I've found a couple to keep me busy for the summer while I try to become more familiar with the language as well.  My kickstarter project, Send An Artist to Japan is now 36% funded which is good news, but I only have about 40 days left to raise the remaining 64%.  If I am unable to find more backers then I do not receive any of it.  I've looked into "buying" out part of the project so I would be able to utilize the funds, but it seems kind of shady and the website does not make it possible anyway.  I don't want to cheapen, or change things on the people that have already backed this project.  Everyone that helps to back this project does receive something in exchange, most of which is artwork.  This is not money for nothing, and while I'm not quite in dire straights time is closing in. 

  I've traveled to different states to promote the project, approached businesses, and utilized communal networks.  As the deadline draws near, a final campaign will be pushed.  It is more about what I am learning and how it is informing my artwork, and how in doing so I am able to help others as well.  Combining the two is no easy task.

Exciting is that I have already been able to set up an exhibition for mid March of 2012 for the works if the project is funded for travel. 

As the Mississippi floods and tornadoes destroy towns, we are affected in our beliefs and daily lives.  I believe it is important to be aware of our folklore, myths, and religions in relation to geology and meteorology.  We can look at the modern history and back to the Mississippian Culture's mythology in how to better handle it cresting its banks.  Egyptian river myths and Osiris are easier to hunt down, but still retain the basic principles of life along mighty rivers. I believe that by looking at other cultures in relation to our own we can gain valuable insights that will save lives and bring new awareness to our daily lives.  In the past, different technologies were "shared" among nation states through warfare, as artisans and craftsman were made prisoners and relocated to the conquering states.  In today's world, this is very possible through peaceful exchange.  For those in the right positions, there are residencies and Fullbright scholarships.  For others like myself it is a much more difficult task, to create a project, find people that believe in it, and raise the money for its completion.

The Apocryphal Pecos Bill.

As tornadoes shred communities, not only may we prepare through drills and shelters, we can tell our children stories that not only will connect us culturally with the past but provide guidelines in parable to the youngest in our communities.  The information on how to prepare, act during, and deal with the aftermath can all be relayed through mediums while building a diverse and healthy culture.  I believe it is essential and beneficial to augment the culturally shared movies, television, and online experiences with our own in a tangibly bonding way.  An amalgamation of theories and processes are needed to deal with and understand the processes of the planet we live on.  It is folly to believe that we have at this time the ability to completely control our Earth's geological processes even though we definitely affect them.  By building levees along the Mississippi River, sediment isn't allowed to rebuild the southern marshes that help shield the state of Louisiana from Hurricanes.  The differences in sediment deposits can affect algae blooms which affects carbon and oxygen levels in the ocean which can affect fish populations which affects what we eat.  And so on and so forth.  Everything affects everything and if anybody digs through my past artist statements, chaos theory has led me to this.

CERN Searching for Building Blocks of The Universe

This project is more than preachy environmentalism, I am looking to understand a part of humanity that is often overlooked culturally except what is made popular through an importation of cartoon's and film.  Not that I have anything against them.  I can dork out on some of them, but I wouldn't want to be represented by "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" to the rest of the world even though its an awesome movie.

I am trying to dispel my own bias and rhetoric, in order to become something more than I am and share this with others.  In order to do so it is imperative that I immerse myself within the Japanese culture whenever possible.

The first step to fully understanding a culture and language has to be an understanding of their mythology, folklore and religion.  Can you imagine someone trying to read Shakespeare without any Christian referential points to rely on?  So I delve into mythology to understand language.  I try to understand language to become aware of landscape.  I try to understand concepts and perception of landscape to explore geology.  I try to understand perceptions of geology to understand people, and I try to understand people to understand myself.   If I understand myself then I can change myself.  If I can change myself I can change the world, right?  I've heard that its easier to change yourself than it is the world, so I'll start there first.

While I try to keep all of that straight in my head, I'll be creating artwork that deals with all of these questions and tries to serve a larger community with out compromising.  The question is, do people have a belief in what I am doing?  Is this project viable, and interesting?  Will this project happen this year or will it be postponed for a couple of years?  If it is postponed will it ever happen?   If you would like to help back my project please visit its main page by clicking HERE, and please journey back through the archives of my blog for more detailed information.  For each Backer level there are awards!  And they are well worth your venture.

By the Old Sea Shore, Not as Conceptually Oblique as You Might Think

THERE were two sisters, they went playing,

      Refrain: With a hie downe downe a downe-a

To see their father’s ships come sayling in.

      Refrain: With a hy downe downe a downe-a

And when they came unto the sea-brym,

The elder did push the younger in.

‘O sister, O sister, take me by the gowne,

And drawe me up upon the dry ground.’

‘O sister, O sister, that may not bee,

Till salt and oatmeale grow both of a tree.’

Somtymes she sanke, somtymes she swam,

Until she came unto the mill-dam.

The miller runne hastily downe the cliffe,

And up he betook her withouten her life.

What did he doe with her brest-bone?

He made him a violl to play thereupon.

What did he doe with her fingers so small?

He made him peggs to his violl withall.

What did he doe with her nose-ridge?

Unto his violl he made him a bridge.

What did he doe with her veynes so blew?

He made him strings to his violl thereto.

What did he doe with her eyes so bright?

Upon his violl he played at first sight.

What did he doe with her tongue so rough?

Unto the violl it spake enough.

What did he doe with her two shinnes?

Unto the violl they danc’d Moll Syms.

Then bespake the treble string,

‘O yonder is my father the king.’

Then bespake the second string,

‘O yonder sitts my mother the queen.’

And then bespake the strings all three,

‘O yonder is my sister that drowned mee.’

‘Now pay the miller for his payne,

And let him bee gone in the divel’s name.’

     I've heard people claim America's culture is bland, without a long history, and commercial in nature.  While there are reasons and points to the previous claim, to make a general statement with out investigation is in no ones interest on this subject.  Modern migrations have brought old histories and culture to obscure the American "native" one and time has gone on to obscure our shared histories and amalgamated them to where we can't always decipher what came from where.  Modern Philosophies and "Avant Garde" art don't spring spontaneously from the ether and its easiest to be shocked by the things we choose to self censor.  Many of the contemporary art movements seek to distance themselves away from 1960's art history and the idea of the object and viewer in a private space. I believe this distancing is un-necessary as more community based projects and performance art began to grow then along with Folk Music making a revival into the popular scene (an unfinished thought).  At UnionDocs on February 10th and 11th you will have the opportunity to experience, with others, documentery films about the sharing of songs and stories, experience the songs performed live and artistic interpretations of the Child Ballads through paintings on exhibition.  

     Hey! Stay on track already. . .  So. . . Child Ballad no.10, known as "The Cruel Sister", and "Twa Sisters" is an old tune dating to the 1600's;  a song over 400 years old and still sung today; the Twa Sister's has been covered by Paul Clayton and even as late as Tom Waits in a 2006 recording.  If my memory serves me right, Art Rosenbaum, who worked with his son Neil on one of the documentaries being screened at UnionDocs, recorded Mary Lomax singing this song or part of it.  Whats important about Mary singing this song is that the song was passed to her by her father in a long line of oral tradition at which roots go back to the 1600's.  Even though the Child Ballads are not totally inclusive of every single ballad, they represent a hefty cross section of what we may consider an American cultural equivalent to Beowolf or even Homer's poems.   I'm sure if we dug deep enough both of those  form an influence upon the ballads somewhere.  The themes in the ballads are not necessarily restricted to Western, or European ideas and archetypes but can be found around the world in all cultures.  The "Twa Sisters" design I developed is based on a variation where the sister that has been wronged has been made into a violin.  When she is played before her parents, her sisters crime is found out.  We always hope justice finds those who wrong.  Unless sometimes its ourselves who are the cruel sister, perhaps then we wouldn't want "to face the music".  Paying people there dues, many thanks to Teddy Johnson and Heather Fares who have done a tremendous amount of work preparing for the Child Ballad shows in both Baltimore and New York.  They will be continuing to work together and are setting up a new exhibition for The Rotating History Project in Baltimore. . . --->http://rotatinghistory.blogspot.com/ .

Confirmation Bias: Koans

Another Etsy print utilizing "children's" art tools consists of MechaGodzilla getting a girlfriend as the readers of "The Inquirer" keep an eye on the relationship.   It’s amazing to see how quickly ideas, archetypes, songs; well culture has morphed in the past century.  I suppose we (the royal human we) have always acclimated quickly.  I don't have as large a grasp on language as I wish I did, but am still enthralled with shared cultural words.  Most times being used in mixed language sentences they lose a . . . je ne sais quoi.  And yes, we do have to thank the French for the feminine blonde, while the rest of the English language is neutered. Like spoken English I've been interested in appropriating for a few reasons.  It creates a dialogue with the past along with paying tribute it.  Building upon ideas of the past is how we've advanced to the technological/digital age.   I enjoy seeing things morph, figuring out (or at least creating my own theories) how they connect to the next gestation and adding to it.  It is an instant personal gratification becoming part of something larger than myself.   If it wasn't for a personal enjoyment I may even associate it with the loss of self.  What is that anyway?  "Is it alive, does it writhe? Can it survive under the sun?" The closest thing I equate to a gnostic experience is losing myself to the act of painting and becoming lucid to the fact that I'm awake and dreaming.

   A question was asked of a Zen master,  "What is the meaning of the ancestral teacher's (i.e., Bodhidharma's) coming from the west?" The master answered, "The cypress tree in front of the hall."  But this is about transformations of ideas, traditions, and art.  Knowing what has been is a good clue of what is and will be and like any good lie should be studied.  The variations, the small differences are what have become interesting.  How many times are you going to watch the same movie?  I bet it was based on a play that was performed over two thousand years ago.  There is some funny stuff in transitions for those of us caught in the middle.  In a way, it’s like being aware of puberty, being in it, past it, and aware of it from the other gender's view all at the same time - and the whole time daises that grow from our ancestor's corpses towards the sun, bending in the wind laugh along.  Oh, wait . . . we embalm and encase our dead like they are pharaohs.  No wonder we have movies like "Night of the Living Dead".   No, that doesn't make sense enough . . . let’s go with Brandon Frasier’s "The Mummy" as reference instead, using a shot of  Brock from "The Venture Bros."  fighting a mummy, even though "Night . . ." is much cooooler.

 My third wish is there to be no more 1970-1990 horror movie remakes.  We're supposed to change things, make them better damn it.  I mean look what happened with Gojira.  Someone transformed two Japanese words (and the Japanese do love to abbreviate/transform their words) for gorilla and whale and made up Gojira.  Then it’s misinterpreted to Godzilla for the U.S. release.  That is a radical name, and besides who would have wanted to go see a movie about a gorilla whale? It was something new [(ish) I'm not forgetting "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" or earlier stories dating back to St. George].  And then there was the 1998 U.S. Godzilla release promoted by Taco Bell.  Hell, Taco Bell started out as a hot dog stand.   What was my point with this? Ah yes . . . The Child Ballad Show.  Having expressed the need to recognize the importance of "tradition" I think it’s fair to impose one's own will upon its impending change.  The streets don't change but maybe their name . . .  The only fear/sin against tradition is the same for history: forgetting it.  Maybe forgetting should be replaced with "not learning".   To do either would be missing a hold on it.   "Is it numb?  Does it glow, will it shine? Does it leave a trail of slime?"  The most important thing to do with tradition is to play with it.  Game the sh*t out of it.  Most of the time all its doing is pointing out that you’re alive.
 Speaking of transformations. . . I'm happy to be sharing wall space with Bart Lynch (image above) in September.  In the past I've had the chance to visit him in the studio and its mind boggling how he works.  To see these seemingly spontaneous calligraphic marks converge into an overall composition consisting of stories within stories within stories is something to behold.  I highly recommend viewing his work when you get the chance.  That's at least one thing that I'm doing at the Child Ballad Show in Baltimore.  I just finished the painting for the show, and believe me I played the sh*t out of it.   To answer  some of you all's first questions reading this, "No, when making the print I was not consciously thinking about "Bambi meets Godzilla".  Someone pointed that out to me the other day and I almost threw up in my mouth because I had forgotten about it.  I'm more optimistic and think the relationship in my print will turn out better."   Have I learned anything?

Don't forget the 5th law: A Discordian is prohibited from believing what he reads.
If you are having trouble with that, consult your pineal gland.

Time to get back in the studio.




Jiun, a Shingon master, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar of the Tokugawa era. When he was young he used to deliver lectures to his brother students.
His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter:"Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desired to turn into a walking dictionary for others. There is no end to information and commentation, glory and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization."

The Laser Sound of Our Cosmic History

"What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkity sound?

A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing! Everyone knows it's Slinky.

It's Slinky, it's Slinky. For fun it's a wonderful toy.

It's Slinky, it's Slinky. It's fun for a girl or a boy.

It's fun for a a girl or boy!"

So in my search for Philadelphia History I've come to this cosmic connection: The Slinky. 300 million Slinkies have been sold around the world. We've shared in walking it, putting it up to our ears and shaking it for laser beam sound effects, pinching our selves in its coils, and untangling it from itself. I find it perfect in its ingenuity, its simplicity, its working class affordability. Why would you let your children play with the mercury from a thermometer or roll each other down a hill in old tires when you can buy them a shipyard spring to slink down some stairs? Perhaps the most fun to be had with a slinky is setting up a course for it to walk down. The Cramps Shipyard, where the Slinky was invented, is bound for demolition. It is the last building of the preeminent ship building facility of the 19th century. It fell into disuse in 1947 and will finally be laid to waste by a junction of on and off ramps for I-95. Not a five-minute walk from our front door and you can see the overgrown bank of the Delaware river where the main Cramps building used to be. A few minutes walk back and you’ll see the building planphilly.com wants to conserve. It’s all looming angles and giant glass panes. It looks like a giant lego-brick airplane hangar. You may find this small painting HERE at my etsy store.

Don't Stop Till You Get Enough

So I almost forgot where I was when Michael Jackson died last year. That is how it starts, and then the memory eventually becomes like a deserted industrial building retaining the ghostly lettering of a business that no longer exists . . . eventually. It will be a long time before the estate of M.J. lets the money making machine of his cult of personality die. As this most recent series of paintings are of Philadelphia buildings I thought I'd delve into Philly's relationship to the King of Pop. In the mid 1970 two albums for Jackson and his brothers were produced under the Philadelphia International Records label. The albums were "The Jacksons" and "Going Places." According to news reports of the time Jackson wanted to start making songs with messages. I was old enough to remember "Thriller" coming out, but unlike my older brother, too young for parachute pants. And oh, was I jealous of all of those zippers and pockets. I mean what frog-string-stick-toy-penny in my pocket-kid wouldn't envy those. Granted the pants were too tight to make the pockets practical, and I already wore a pair of Roo's with the pocket on the side that I would get my milk money stuck in. At least they weren’t penny loafers. But that was in Georgia . . . in the shadow of Stone Mountain. This is about Philly, where everything is annoyingly spelled with a PH instead of an F. So like almost everything else in America's history Philadelphia can lay claim to another first, as the first place after Motown Records the Jacksons decided to record. Of course if you want to scrutinize it that is how most of Philly's phirsts are. They are kind of firsts. What I'm concerned with is more the demise of Philadelphia's landmark history. This painting is of the Edward Corner Marine Warehouse, and it’s deserted and the lettering has become ghostly. I've placed it in the background to further emphasize the fading memory of Philadelphia's maritime history. While M.J. is/was an international phenomena and maritime trading brought the world closer together, the cosmic unifier I started this series out with is more subtle. Its more tactile and is perfect in its American Ingenuity. Curious? All will be revealed next time.

If you like this painting and are interested in purchasing it please click HERE.

Rambo: Schemes of the Rich and Mo' Power

What is one of the more interesting "historical" places on paper that can’t really be seen anymore around my neighborhood? Gunner’s Run. It was a creek turned into a canal that was used as an investment scheme and is now paved over. Hey, that does not sound cool. Well, boys and girls, it’s named after Gunner Rambo ca. 1847. I don't think its a stretch to connect it to Sylvester Stallone. . . . We have a Rocky Statue in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, now I suggest, no, demand that a statue of Rambo be place on the paved over-overgrown-Aramingo Canal where it once met the Delaware River. What could be more American than a statue of Rambo planted over a historical Philadelphia money pit? The new Delaware River Green Way welcome entrance could be a bronze statue of a savage man with a bowie knife in his mouth, a bow and arrow (tribute to Native Americans), and a plaque that reads: 1st capital of the United States, 1st continental congress, 1st Blood. If you don't like the bow and arrow Idea go HERE. Wasn't that what Rambo was about, opposing corrupt and bad American ideas? A little further North is The Richmond Power Plant. It is butted up against the Recycling plant and shipping wharves of Port Richmond. If you'd like to hang out by the high tension lines and listen to the hum of transformers for a while or two you may just be lucky enough to see a gleaming silver ACES train pass by taking people to Atlantic City.



You can litteraly feel the power in the air by the Betsy Ross bridge. When the 1876 World's Fair was happening, I imagine, they imagined future architecture to look like power substations. Just imagine thinking about the future at the exposition of A. Graham Bell's telephone, a typewriter, Heinz Ketchup, and another failed american project - Kudzu as an erosion control plant. Kudzu now spreads at a rate of 150,000 acres annually, according to Science Daily. It produces ground level Ozone for the South East enhancing the drawl of all in Y'all. If you are interested in purchasing a painting of an imagining of imaginings visit my Etsy site HERE. Kudzu and Rambo are still not the cosmic connection of generations that I"m leading up to though. 2 more posts and we're there. We're there already but I just have to reveal it slowly. I don't want anybody to be scared of the final surprise sprung. You're not a scaredy-cat are you? Then read on in a few.

Philadelphia Burning

With our recent trip to Japan I began to get used to all of these ancient land marks surrounding us. I began to wonder what we walk by everyday at home, in the U.S., and don’t even know or care is historic. We do live in Philadelphia, some big history for the country there, but what about our neighborhood? What do we have in our ‘hood that is similar in importance to what is in Motoko’s Parents in Japan? Is there anything? I drove around our neighborhood and tried to explore some areas that the local preservation group is trying to have deemed important for Philadelphia’s history. I was a nice day out so I brought along the camera to shot some photos for painting references, and sketched some as well. I started out at planphilly.com and looked through the points of interest, chose our driving path of least resistance, and hopped in the car/truck thing to go and breathe some fresh (questionably) air. It was fresh. The area we live in is up for, a name calling, debate. Things can get heated between city folk about where they are from and what neighborhood is what and authentic real estate agents will get into fisticuffs over it. Being a transplanted southern boy now living in the lowest part of the North’s denial, which it’s the same as the southeastern coast, I had to define again where I live and joined in on the fun. Technically we live in what was historically called Olde Richmond. It is now considered part of Fishtown (sigh of relief). So what is all this coming to? I can proudly stand up and say, “I have had a connection to my current neighborhood all my life!” If you are, not quite a person of a certain age, are a person of a certain age, or progeny of said people you too have this cosmic connection.

I’ll start at the beginning and we'll work our way to the cosmic connection by the end of the week.

My first stop was the music club The Barbary has been around since 1969 and is up for a nomination into the historical preservation society. Their page= www.myspace.com/thenewbarbary

That Music Venue that is so cool it is almost historical, but would never claim outright that it is because that - would be uncool.

According to wiki-travel it is “Hipster Heaven.” I can’t find any information about its importance to music except that it’s been around for a while. Someone let me know about that one please. Its name is interesting in context of the city considering this: the USS Philadelphia was lit aflame by its own people in the first Barbary war.

I will be posting a new Philadelphia 19125 painting every day over the next 5 days. You can purchase them off of my etsy site for $60.00 eachHERE. These paintings are mounted onto 6"x8" frames. Hey, even figure painters need to paint landscapes. After these it is on to the Child Ballad work, http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Child-Ballads-Show/127757983923416?ref=mf .

Mounting the Dohyo

Continuing the dainty daily sumo paintings... a little more history about the match preparation paraphrased from wikipedia, "On mounting the dohyō, which takes its name from the straw rice bag which mark out different parts the ring, the wrestler performs a number of rituals derived from Shinto practice. Facing the audience, he claps his hands and then performs the leg-stomping shiko exercise to drive evil spirits from the dohyō as the "Gyōji, or referee, who will coordinate the bout announces the wrestlers' names. Stepping out of the ring into their corners, each wrestler is given a ladle full of water, the chikara-mizu ("power water"), with which he rinses out his mouth; and a paper tissue, the chikara-gami ("power paper"), to dry his lips. Then both step back into the ring, squat facing each other, clap their hands, then spread them wide (traditionally to show they have no weapons). Returning to their corners, they each pick up a handful of salt which they toss onto the ring to purify it."

The literal translations of power water and power paper remind me of my early child hood. Running around the woods making forts and popping sweet-tarts claiming they were power-pellets when we needed the extra strength to move a tree or quickness to catch a crawdad. It was ritual to flick them into one's mouth, flex the guns, and if something needed stomping to stomp it. I'm sure it was all due to some strange Pac-man/G.I. Joe/M.A.S.K./He-Man influenced sugar high. Early sumo was a rough-and-tumble affair combining elements of boxing and wrestling with few or no holds barred. I'm sure they would have liked some power-pellets to go along with the water and paper. Especially since there are no weight classes. A wrestler can easily find himself up against an opponent twice his size.

Looking back at some of my favorite paintings made by George Bellows of the Ashcan school, (early enough in the 20th century that New York artists would come to Philadelphia for inspiration) I can see how the physicality and meat-like quality of the pugilists spill into their opponents.

While I enjoy these grisly paintings and have tried to retain some of the "weight" of the opponents, the atmosphere in which I was brought to Sumo wrestling was not as bloody or seedy. Well maybe seedy in a different way. Insinuating how we think of origami and painting these larger than life men on floral origami paper I wanted to emphasize the ritual of the event and juxtapose their girth against an ostensibly fragile plant. Sumo, after all, did have its origins as a Shinto agricultural planting ritual in hopes of a bountiful season. The Sumo ring is topped by a "tsuriyane", or suspended roof, that resembles a Shinto shrine. This diptych is before the match as the dohyo is physically and spiritually cleaned. I have left the standing wrestler "floating" a little to further emphasize this part of the ritual as the wrestlers will become more grounded as they engage.

To purchase these paintings or look at others click HERE.

Next time the Evil Spirits will be driven away!?

Another One for the Road

It seems that when everything fails and you keep on trying somebody should just lock you up. Avowing success another figure painter starts down a road of best intentions. What have I gotten myself into? Back from Japan for about a month now and I've decided to start keeping a blog on the works I've been working on from there as well as what they morph into, while hopefully lending some insight into what I'm doing and giving you the reader a chance at the artworks before I sell them in the city. The first series of paintings I've been working on are mix and match sumo diptychs. They are about 4"x5" and are acrylic painted on origami paper mounted on panel. The plan is after compiling 6 sets to issue a small number of related prints and handmade book. As I'm working on these they will lead into how I am approaching a gallery show in Baltimore this September. That will be a busy month of migrating around for sure, with another gig in Savannah. The Sumo paintings are loosely based on the recent matches in Osaka this past March. I've always been intrigued with idea of martial arts and the spiritual mystique of late night black belt theater on T.V. but to be honest I never was into Sumo that much. This changed as I found myself absorbed in watching the televised matches while I was in Japan. Watching over live broadcast I found the matches to be as unreal as those 2 a.m. kung-fu movies. They were, just beautiful. These 2 massive guys enter into a ring, sizing each other up, intimidating each other, slapping themselves like slabs of meat the butcher is showing off, and finally, with speed that is astonishing for these hefty men, they are battling/maneuvering/dancing their opponent by not just brute force but gravitational cunning and in some cases a great deal of grace. Sumo is like a judo match on steroids. As well as combat, sumo is associated with Shinto ritual, and some shrines carry out a ritual dance where a human is said to wrestle with a divine spirit. I've never seen this dance carried out but I choose to imagine it as a Sufi Dervish dance for now. It was also a court ritual called sumai no sechi, where representatives of each province were ordered to attend the contest and fight. On top of that they had to pay for their own way there. Sumo is only practiced officially in Japan but there are a considerable number of foreigners who participate. My favorite being !Baruto! who placed second last March with a 14-1 match record. The Panel on the left has already been sold in conjunction with what will be the last panel in this 12 painting series. Don't despair! There will be 10 more paintings along with a few related prints and a limited edition handmade book of the panels in sequence. To purchase the painting on the right its as easy as clicking HERE which will direct you to my Etsy page! See you in a day or two for the next part. So the beginning of the match starts: