Artistic Waste Services

The town of Rifle

Erotic Bakery

Iowa gas… Medium grade is always cheaper (its the ethanol). So who’s buying the regular??

and some more signs, to the classic song Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

In San Diego I stayed with an old friend, Nancy and her family. Her younger sister Ingrid Bouchard is my oldest friend. We met in Kindergarten and became close friends at age 10, remaining close friends ever since. She lives in Montreal, where she’s happily married with kids. In our teens and twenties, we had our share of adventures… among other things, she’s one of the many friends I would drag into alleys at night, just to look at them and experience their raw energy. She never once found this odd.

Speaking of energy… Here are some of the many hundreds (thousands??) of wind turbines you see driving through California’s Central Valley. I shot these this morning.

Road Rage in LA is a reality. Every time I’ve driven in/around/through the city, I’ve seen it. One reason for it becomes apparent the minute you drive into the city. The highway lanes become uncomfortably narrow. You get squeezed in so tight, the cars and trucks next to you are inches away. They probably didn’t start that way, but to accommodate the growing number of vehicles, the city (I’m assuming) added an extra lane, doing away with shoulders, and stripping space from the existing lanes.

Add to this the constant bumper to bumper traffic and now you’re going 70 mph with cars packed in on all sides and everyone yelling at everyone.

And wow… I didn’t get a single alley shot. Saturday night I was fired up – ready to dive into Portland’s darker, grittier corners looking for diamonds in the rough. I drove and walked around with Pam for 4 hours through all the main run-down neighborhoods. And I know there were many great images sitting quietly, waiting to be found - I just didn’t find one. Its frustrating, knowing they are around you, hidden within the night’s outlines, and not being able to see them… Finally I ran out of steam and called it a night. Sunday night I was ready to go again but the friends we were staying with, Charles and Drew, had frosty beers waiting to be opened and I just couldn’t say no… So, Portland… til we meet again…

Some of the shots from our drive back.

Mount Shasta:

A wee bird that found a hard corn chip and started dunking it in water to soften it up

Times Square, NYC (both pictures):

I’m off to Chicago for Port Clinton and I’ll be back Monday… I’m learning to pack quickly (when I’m not carrying artwork). I think it took me 5 minutes today…

The area was not what I’m accustomed to in the East. Grass here grows naturally in the winter, for 2 months, then dries to a crisp for the rest of the year. This huge man-made lake (its actually a reservoir that provides water to the Bay Area) is surrounded by all this arid, dead grass. It was beautiful to look at, but not so comfortable to lie on, but that didn’t stop us from taking a nice nap on it…

A little girl playing by the lake

The afternoon sun

The flight I’m on is packed… this is now the norm. I’ve asked for special permission to travel with the baggage. I believe this will be far more comfortable.

On my way to Ann Arbor from Minneapolis a few days ago, a massive storm gathered on the horizon as I drove down I-94. Lightning strikes were occurring more than once per second – I don’t think I’d ever seen that before. The sky was lit up more often than not in a glorious display of nature’s awesome power. I had to get off the interstate where I found a dark road with a great view. I stopped and walked into a field where I just stared in awe for 20 minutes at this storm as it slowly approached. Eventually huge blobs of water started coming down and I was no longer in awe as I ran back to my van.

As I continued my drive, now in a torrential downpour, I thought about nature’s power when it descends upon urban ruins. The elements – the rain, the cold, the heat… even oxygen – start eroding away the buildings, while the bugs start eating and chipping away, since they’ll eat any old crap. In no time, plants begin growing in the mortar and in all the little cracks. The roots go deeper and get thicker and somehow these fragile little things begin cracking the bricks and the concrete and the wood, slowly consuming the building. The powerful, yet gentle arms of nature reach around these structures and slowly but forcefully pull them down to the ground, drawing them back to the earth, as earth, from whence they began. It’s an incredible cycle that is both inspiring and frightening.

Don’t turn your back on this harmless looking Pansy (shot in 2002)… it could punch your lights out!!

For now here’s a beat up Polaroid test shot from Saturday night (its a very, VERY rough version of what I have on film).  The image is of an amazing abandoned loading dock under a bridge along the Mississippi River. There were maybe fifteen old and corroding bay doors, flanked by great pillars, under a crumbling ceiling. Decades ago, trains would unload their cargo here, onto waiting trucks.