Art can change a person's life!

I have been reading and grading "reflective essay" papers from my Senior Project class. I was moved by this wonderful passage written by a student who just joined us this fall:

My art holds a very special place close and dear to my heart. Without it, I would not be the person I am. Without it, I would be as I was in the past, a lost mind roaming this distant world. A fiend snared in the corruption of my city, as many are. With it, I have a chance to make it, to break the cycle, to be one of the first young men to make it in my family, breaking the chains holding us back.

It's stuff like this that keeps us teachers going!

Photos: Christmas in Naples, Florida

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These photos were taken on my recent trip to visit my parents in Florida.

Click on images for a larger view

Christmas Lights on Palm Trees










Various other Lights

Nava Yoni

New painting, just finished. (click on the image to enlarge)


Jacobi, Nava Yoni, 18" x 24", acrylic, 2009

The progression of this painting from original sketch can be seen here.

Interlochen All-Stars poster

(click on image to view at full size)

This is a poster I created for an upcoming gig I'll be playing in December. Style-wise, it's based on the look of many of the R&B posters from the late 1950s and early 1960s (see below).

Assemblage Art

This is a piece that I created more or less as a sample piece for the 3D Art class that I am teaching. I have not done assemblage work like this before; it was kind of fun!

I think that one could read all kinds of things into a piece like this. What is it about in my mind? I'm not saying, but I'd be curious to know what people think, if anyone cares to opine.

(click on images to see at a larger size)






Now, something just for fun...

I made a post a while back about the "Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds Barbie". I looked out my back door a recently and this is what I saw:

R. Crumb does the book of Genesis

That's right, underground comix hero Robert Crumb has illustrated the entire book of Genesis. I just discovered this a couple days ago, and immediately picked up a copy. If you're at all familiar with Crumb's work, this might seem like an unlikely pairing. However, Crumb takes the work seriously. He is not poking fun-- he is, as far as I can tell on quick perusal, quite faithful to the original text.



Of course, the book of Genesis is chock full of sex and violence, and as you might imagine (again, if you know his work), Crumb does not shy away from a relatively graphic portrayal of some of these scenes. No doubt some folks would be offended by some of the images, but hey-- it' in the bible!





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If you are not familiar with Crumb, he was one of a group of artists in the 1960s that appeared in Zap comics, often doing the cover art as well. He created many memorable characters such as Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat. Some of this early work was extremely graphic, but his illustrations for Genesis are in good taste as far as I'm concerned.


Keep on Truckin'... yup, this is R. Crumb


Weirdo, Crumb's mag in the 80s

I can't wait to read through this book, it looks absolutely awesome! (In case you haven't gathered, I have always been a big fan of Crumb's work.) Two big thumbs up!!!

My MFA Thesis Show

Here are some photos from my MFA Thesis Show art installation at the Pickman Gallery, Miskatonic University College of Fine Art.

Okay, just kidding, but it could be. All I'm missing is my Artist's Statement and an unpaid student loan.





What this actually is, is an installation I put in a couple showcases at the school where I work, Arts Academy in the Woods, a charter high school for the arts in Fraser, Michigan (suburban Detroit).

I've been teaching 2D Art at AAW for the last eight years, and am now also teaching 3D Art. Having cleared the showcases of last year's work, I didn't have any new student work to show yet as it's still early in the school year. I've been collecting wood from the curbside in my neighborhood the last few weeks on "garbage night", planning to have it available for my students to use in some upcoming "found art" assemblage pieces.

Prior to my taking over the 3D Art class, the students in that class had not been exposed to things like installation art, nor to the concept of postmodernism in general. So, I thought what better way to introduce it than by creating an installation piece with no title or any other explanation for it.

Of course, many students at our school have wondered, What the heck is this?! Where is the student art? After a couple days I put out a poster board on a table with the heading Is This Art? I made three columns, titled Art, Not Art, Not Sure, and left space for people to write their comments. As you might well imagine, there has been a range of reaction from "this is crap" to "anything can be art" (paraphrased).





For those who think that this is not art, I would refer them to the work of M. Pederson (see below), who has a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and a MFA from California College for the Arts, as well as an extensive CV with a long list of shows, etc.







If you want to see more about this artist, here is a link: (click here)

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So, what do I really think about this? If you have to ask, you'll just never understand.