Solo Show at Fifth Avenue Art Gallery, Melbourne Florida.

In 2018 I applied for a solo show at the Fifth Avenue Art Gallery in Melbourne, Florida.

I was thrill to be offered a solo show in April 2020. I am a full time college professor at a Florida college and time for artmaking is scarce. I planned to use my summer for artmaking. One of the perks of teaching is having use of the art studios when class are not held. I should have been able to do several prints and painting during that time.........However....

Have you ever had the feeling that Mother Nature was out to get you? I have..

On May, 3rd, 2019 I was doing an art festival with students of Seminole State College and artist members Of Seminole County Printmakers at the annual St Johns River Festival of the Arts. We had a wonderful day, carving our relief plates for the general public and having great time. 

Seminole Printmaker

the deluge, trying to hold down the tents.

At about 3:00  a tremendous storm rolled through, blowing over tents and dumping a huge volume of water. Still, it isn't anything unusual in Florida.

On Monday when I went to school, I found a very large oak had partially blown over at the back of the art building, when I entered the building, I found large cracks in  the walls and some doors would not open. Uh Oh!! Risk management gave is a day to collect a few things for our summer class, with the promise we will be back soon. Over the next few days a massive sinkhole, 30ft x 30ft x 80 ft deep, opened up in the theater department, and swallowed up, offices, storage, a script library, as well as valuable tools. We are now nomads on campus, evicted since May 2019. So needless to say, I could not do much new artwork for this solo show. 

How can it get worse you may ask?

Enter Mother Nature again with  Covid -19. My Show was scheduled for April 3rd 2020, just as  the pandemic hit Florida hard. The show was pushed back until August 3. Surely everything would be over by then, right? 

my garage /  studio

Well, the good news, I opted not to teach so that I could work on this show, I set up my garage as a studio, and spent three months painting. I managed to paint 6 new canvases. I had plenty of work for this show now, nine paintings and plenty of etchings. The bad news was the pandemic didn't "go away", it was still a threat. However areas Florida had fewer cases, as did Melbourne. So we decided to do the show. The Gallery was excellent, the people were incredible. I dropped of my paintings and they did a fantastic job hanging it. Normal opening at this gallery have music, food, and drinks. But we couldn't because of the virus. I live about 80 miles from the gallery so I wasn't expecting many people from home there. The turn out was light, as expected, but I had some unexpected visitors. One good friend from our Seminole printmakers showed up, as did my family. One of the surprises of the night was former colleague from University of Alaska showed up. I had not seen him in 20 years but as soon as he popped his head into the gallery I recognized him, mask and all. I was honored that he came. I have tremendous respect for him, as an artist as well as a person. I have always admired his incredible energy. His painting and printmaking have been a great influence on me. Then later in the evening things settled down and I thought about heading home. A large group arrived late,and there were two students, with parents and friends, who signed up for my fall drawing classes. I was very surprised. Both students are young but I noticed what they looked at, and what they found interesting in the paintings. Afterwards they had some very good questions. So despite Covid-19 I had a very memorable art opening.  

I would like to thank everyone at the Fifth Avenue Art Gallery for making me feel welcomed and for their professionalism in a difficult situation. Lets hope the pandemic ends soon so that we all can get back to doing the things we love, 

Magpie, Crow and Raven

THE MAGPIE, THE CROW, AND THE RAVEN diptych 5 inch x 14 inch 2019
Magpies, Crows, and Ravens are Corvids, cousins within a family. In all regions of the world, there is a wealth of myths, stories, and superstitions about these clever birds. In all these stories they are tricksters, fortune tellers, or transformational creatures. The magpie is half the size of a crow, and the crow is one-third the size of the raven. Despite the size difference, they all have similar behaviors, and they are the smartest members of the bird kingdom. I taught Art History in Beijing for a few months. Outside our classroom window, we had a steady stream of raucous but beautiful magpies. I loved watching these intelligent birds interact.
When I lived in Alaska, crows and magpies were scarce, now they are widespread in the coastal regions. One of the things I enjoyed was how the little birds bully the big birds, Magpies mob the crows, while both crows and magpies gang up on the ravens. In My print, the large Raven is being teased and annoyed by his smaller cousins. 

Clever Bird

Joshua Klein is a techie, self-described hacker and general science enthusiast. He is most widely known for his project designed to train crows to fetch lost change but has also used this experience to write three books, a science fiction novel a cyberpunk novel called Roo'd and a business book Hacking Work 2010, and 2015 You Are the Product: How to Survive-and Thrive-in the Era of Reputation Economics. In his TED Talk "A Thought Experiment on the Intelligence of Crows" Joshua was interested in the untapped potential of one of the planet's most intelligent creatures, the crow!! In 2008 he devised an experiment to learn about Crow and Raven intelligence. Researchers built a vending machine where crows could deposit coins in exchange for peanuts. The crows were trained over months of patient persistence. the crows mastered the technique. Eventually, some of the trained crows escaped. the trained crows soon began teaching other crows how to receive peanuts in exchange for coins. The crows learned well.

Joshua Klein's Crow Box

Crows Hoarding Coins
Ravens and crows love shiny things. I once found a crow roost and under it were spoons, aluminum foil, a couple of ear rings and many coins. They are attracted to shiny things. 
In 2011 the owner of a company that manufactures and installs car wash systems installed one of these systems in Maryland. The buyer complained he was losing significant amounts of money each day. He even accused his company of ripping him off. The owner of the car-wash also complained that his candy vending machine was also being ransacked of its peanuts.
A video camera was installed to see who exactly is stealing all the coins. He was shocked to see several black birds climbing into the machines and carrying away coins. After following the birds, he discovered quarters on the top of a car wash and more in a tree, an estimated amount of $4,000. Dozens of peanut wrappers were also discovered.
The crows learned very well

Watch the video- http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html?source=email#.T3PL3ZMoOVM.email

http://thecrowbox.com/

The Smoking Crows

Smoke symbolizes the transition of matter into spirit. Crow brought fire to humans, and he taught them to use Tobacco with fire. With the fire, it became medicine that transported spirits. Smoke represents the release of the spirit, from its visible and physical form into the invisible and spiritual. Crow taught Man to use tobacco to heal wounds of war and anger. It was once a powerful tool for healing the human spirit. People had four uses for tobacco: for prayers, for offerings or ceremonies, as medicine and as gifts to visitors.

Over time the humans forgot all about the meaning of tobacco and fire. They became slothful dirty creatures throwing tobacco carelessly about the land and sea. Crow had tried to clean up messes humans made but is was futile, no matter how much time they spent cleaning up, Man always made a bigger mess. Crow stopped trying but lingered hoping that Humans would change.
Clever Crow. He waited for Humans to become as smart as he was. The Slothful Humans came up with a “trick” to get Crow to clean up after them again. Crow let Humans think he was “trainable”.
Crow was now getting fat cleaning up after the Lazy Humans.

Dutch Crow Cigarettes Box

In 2017 A Dutch company “Crowded City” inspired by Joshua Klein's experiments developed a device to entice Crows to collect cigarette butts in exchange for a treat. Like the original experiment, this experiment relied upon crows' ability to transfer learned experience to other crows, essentially the crow trained other crows to exchange cigarettes for food.  
I actually discovered both of these stories independently. I had seen similar behavior myself and was intrigued about the connection, Joshua Klein.  I sent Joshua one of my Hoarders prints and I received a very sincere email from him, thanking me. He is a very humble man, his research has highlighted the fact that we are not the only intelligent creatures on our planet. 




http://www.odditycentral.com/news/dutch-startup-wants-to-train-crows-to-clean-streets-of-cigarette-butts.html
https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2017/10/06/1082787/

http://www.thecrowbox.com/

Hoarders

 Etching , 5 inch x 7 inch 2012  $70 
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The Smoking Crow.
 Etching, 5 inch x 7 inch 2018 $70
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