Living History: An Interview with JAMES DRISCOLL, author of FLUSHING: 1880---1935

KIRPAL GORDON: I first saw your book, “Flushing: 1880---1935,” at the Voekler Orth Museum, Bird Sanctuary and Victorian Garden when George Wallace spoke there last month on Walt Whitman.  As you may know, Jim, Giant Steps Press has many connections to Flushing, so please tell our readers about you, your involvement with the museum as well as the Queens Historical Society and how the book, published by Arcadia Press, came to be.

JAMES DRISCOLL: I taught social studies in the New York Public Schools for over twenty years and have lived in Flushing all my life. I started doing research at the Queens Historical Society about twenty years ago. I am also on the board of the Voelker Orth Museum. About seven years ago their executive director, Catherine Abrams, asked me to do a book about Flushing for Arcadia.

KIRPAL GORDON: I was knocked out to read of the Flushing Remonstrance and the part Flushing played in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. 

JAMES DRISCOLL: Flushing has a wonderful history. Way back in December of 1657 the people of Flushing defied the Governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, and allowed all men and women to worship God as they saw fit. The incident that brought this about was Stuyvesant's persecution of the Quakers. Although they were not Quakers, the people of Flushing issued a statement called the Flushing Remonstrance which may have been the first statement in America defending this basic right. Stuyvesant did not give in. He continued to persecute the Quakers and the people who wrote the document. About two years later he heard that John Bowne allowed his wife who was a converted Quaker to use the Bowne House as a place to hold their meetings. Stuyvesant found out about it and ordered Bowne to leave the colony. Bowne went to Holland and complained about Stuyvesant. The directors of the Dutch West India Company agree with Bowne and ordered Stuyvesant to change his policies. Almost two hundred years later the Quakers in Flushing, we believe, supported the Underground Railroad and helped slaves flee to Canada.

KIRPAL GORDON: I found Chapter Two, “Flushing’s Horticultural Heritage,” particularly interesting, especially your remark that many of the trees in Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn originally came from nurseries here. 

JAMES DRISCOLL: The first commercial nursery was started in North America was started in 1737 by members of the Prince Family. According to the Journals of Frederick Olmstead, Olmstead picked out trees in Europe for Central Park. His buying partner was Samuel Bowne Parsons, one of the owners of the Parsons Nursery in Flushing. That was in the 1850s.

KIRPAL GORDON: Both the historical chapters and the geographical chapters on Broadway, Main Street, Murray Hill, Waldheim and Kissena Park really come to life thanks to the paintings, sketches, maps, photos and postcards you have managed to collect and comment upon.  What was it like researching this project?

JAMES DRISCOLL:  I used Vincent Seyfried's  postcards for about 80 percent of the images. The maps I Used came from the Queens Historical 

Society collection. The Queens Historical Society now owns many of his cards.

KIRPAL GORDON: In your last chapter, “Changes in the 1920s,” you really sent me down Memory Lane with that postcard of the magnificent interior of the old RKO on Main Street and Northern Boulevard.  Will that ever be restored?  

JAMES DRISCOLL: The RKO Keiths was landmarked in its entirety but the late Donald Manes had landmark status withdrawn from the auditorium. The best we can hope for is that the building is restored preserving the sections that are still landmarked: the ticket lobby and the grand foyer.

KIRPAL GORDON: In an earlier blog post, I asked Jason Antos, author of Whitestone, about curbing overdevelopment, and he said, “That is up to the people, our local politicians and zoning laws. The laws have to be enforced and perhaps changed so that Whitestone can retain some of its small town feel.”  Do you think this is also true for Flushing?  What would you recommend that citizens do to help preserve Flushing’s unique history?

 

JAMES DRISCOLL: Whitestone and Bayside are more residential so they have a different set of problems than Flushing. What has helped in Flushing has

been the landmark law. Some of the buildings we wanted to save, such as the 

Quaker Meeting House and the Kingsland Home, have been declared 

landmarks. Unfortunately the Landmarks law only dates from the late 1960s 

and many of the buildings we wanted to save, such as the Prince Homestead, 

have been torn down.   

KIRPAL GORDON: How can folks purchase your book and stay in touch
with what you are doing?

JAMES DRISCOLL: Currently I am working on the Underground Railroad on Duffield Street in Brooklyn. To buy a copy of “Flushing,” call the Voelker Orth House at 718-359-6227 or visit online at www.vomuseum.org or in person at 149-19 38 Avenue, Flushing, NY, 11354.

Painting the Texas Hill Country: An Interview with DUSTY PENDLETON



KIRPAL GORDON:  As you enter your 41st year of working as a painter, do you have any thoughts on your career so far?

DUSTY PENDLETON:  First of all, I’ve never considered what I do or have as being a ‘career.’ This is in direct opposition to the idea of ‘careerism’ in the arts wherein a certain amount of time and energy is spent on self-promotion and hype in order to get the works sold. My feelings have always run to the idea that if what I’m doing is legitimate, then it will be allowed to continue being done. If the work resonates, then someone will find it to be something that they'd wish to keep.  For many, that’s not possible but for some, it is and they buy it. Like Stieglitz said of the works in his gallery, “These works are for sale, but no, we do not sell art.”



KIRPAL GORDON:  How did you come to this way of thinking?

DUSTY PENDLETON: I’d read of Stieglitz while studying art history, but it wasn’t until arriving in NYC that I encountered how the system works there. That Grand Dame of the Artists Information Registry, that sort of clearing house for artists and gallery connections, put it to me as, “Who do you think you are? You've got to find a gallery, go to openings, attend the parties and maybe get your own solo show and then another gallery will notice how your works are doing and they will steal you away from the first gallery and so forth.” That's when I became aware of the dictum, ‘It’s not about the art, it’s about the artist.’ Plus, I found that no gallery would consider showing the 
figure, certainly not the nude. So, to get noticed, I’d have to be working within the parameters of what I called the style du jour. None of that made me want to be a part of the scene, so I didn’t.  It’s that simple.

KIRPAL GORDON: Has it been difficult to be outside the mainstream?

DUSTY PENDLETON: There have been times, certainly, when I could have been better  funded. However, Martha, my wife of 41 years, has always been supportive and kept the wolves at bay when needed. When times have been better, we’ve been able to move about to more interesting locales with lower overheads.  We’re in this together, you see.  Also, we both really enjoyed the foreign experiences, which seem quite exotic but were actually more a case of lower overhead expenses. To live for a year in Paris was less expensive than a year in NYC during the 70s and a year in England was less expensive than Paris in the 80s and so on. Plus, there was the added bonus of the respect that Europeans or Mexicans have for anyone in the arts and they aren’t so hide bound about accepting them into their community.



KIRPAL GORDON:  I notice that, since returning to Texas, you’ve become more of a landscape painter. Is that because Texas is more open to your landscapes than your figure work? I can’t imagine Texas as being a place where the nude is all right as subject matter.

DUSTY PENDLETON:  Texas, or ‘Takes-us’ as I call it, is still a mish mash of uptight and liberal but I did find that Austin was a great venue and nudes aren’t an issue there. However, the galleries suffered in this recession and all that carried my work are now defunct. The landscape here is beautiful but rapidly vanishing due to the booming population so what I’m doing is essentially fiction---painting what I remember it to have been. It’s also a place where the sun is merciless so the landscapes are best seen in the crepuscular light of twilight or early morning.  Everything that I do is accomplished in the studio and is of things remembered. This studio is also a reason to be here. The space is twice the size of any apartment that we ever had in Paris or 
anywhere else in Europe or Mexico and far and away less expensive. It may be that affordable space combined with on line communication will make artists aware that living and working NYC isn’t all that necessary and there are thousands of us out here in the hinterlands who are doing just fine.



KIRPAL GORDON:  How can interested viewers see your work?

DUSTY PENDLETON: If what they’ve seen on this blog piques an interest, they can go to http://www.pendletonart.com/ to see more works and my contact information.  We’ll work from there to see what can be arranged.

The Ultimate Scribe to His Tribe: An Interview with JUSTIN LUKE

KIRPAL GORDON: First off, I congratulate you on writing an extraordinary first novel, Gulliver Travels. It’s also gotten great press, and you have had incredible success selling the book via Amazon, Kindle and other new technologies as well as through your day and night jobs. What’s the adventure been like for you?

JUSTIN LUKE: Thank you, KP! And I thought that my novel's namesake had an adventure… little did I know what was in store for me! Gulliver Travels actually began almost 3 years ago, as a National Novel Writing Month challenge (I got the 50k words in 30 days, score). From there I re-published the "novella" to a blog while I spent a year revising it… people then began assuming that Gulliver was real and he became a celebrity in New York City! He was asked out on hundreds of dates, offered jobs, propositioned for sex… needless to say, when I had to "come out" as the Guy behind Gully, it was a bit of a trip.

From there, I self-published the book using Amazon's CreateSpace, as well as Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. And I then discovered that the gay 20-something demographic, who are well known to spend lots of money on things, weren't AVERSE to reading… it was just that no one had ever bothered writing anything for them before. This led to my book becoming the #1 highest rated gay book on the Amazon Kindle within three weeks. If this wasn't exciting enough, one day I was walking home from my day job when I got a Facebook email from the Senior Book Buyer at Amazon Encore, Amazon's publishing imprint. He had grabbed Gully, and enjoyed it immensely… and offered me a 3-book deal!

The first thing I did was read the email ten times. I had given up on being traditionally published years earlier! That's why I self-published! After that I called my Mom and Boyfriend and Dad and Best Friend, and through jagged sobs of happiness, told them. From there it's been a stress-filled dream come true. New revisions, new writing, meeting with marketing teams and design teams and experiencing what I've been dreaming of since my parents bought me a typewriter when I was 12. And all of this has happened BEFORE my book Gulliver Takes Manhattan goes on sale internationally in May of 2012! I can't wait to see what else is in store. As Gulliver says at the end of the novel: "I should be terrified. I am so fucking excited."

KIRPAL GORDON: Not only do you express yourself very well online, but taken together, the video and print interviews you’ve done make it clear that for gay members of the generation under thirty years old trying to make New York City their home, “Gulliver Travels” is the ideal handbook. What’s it like to be so well received by the gay community?

JUSTIN LUKE: Being received so well by the gay community, frankly, is something that HAD to happen. If it didn't I would have considered myself a failure, hung up my hat, and moved to some suburb in Illinois, never to be heard of again. I've been working as a gay nightlife promoter and producer for over two years now. I have been keeping the illustrious metropolitan gay twenty-something male in my sights for even longer than that. I study them. I observe them. I meet hundreds of them a week. If, after all that, I WASN'T received by the community, I would have seriously had to reconsider my talents.

Also, it's all I've ever wanted. I began my life as a wallflower in elementary, junior, and high school. It wasn't until I detonated the closet in college that I began to discover myself. Now I'm living my dream: I'm having fun, I'm meeting younger gay guys and able to teach them and prepare them for the world ahead of them and give them learnings from my life experiences.

And, finally, it's fun because they care about what I care about. When I write something, I'm writing it for me. Luckily, it's perfectly in line with what this community wants as well!


KIRPAL GORDON: The only thing I found a bit odd was all too little mention of the book’s literary merit. Granted, most of your interviewers were dealing with its gay, youth or New York themes, but it is an extremely well written, page-turning tale. It built a powerful momentum chapter after chapter, and like all great literature, it riveted me by pity and fear, Aristotle’s famous remark in his Poetics on the cathartic quality of storytelling.


JUSTIN LUKE: Thank you, Kirpal, it means a lot to me to hear that.

I'll be honest, KP. I wasn't going to call Gulliver Travels (or Gulliver Takes Manhattan) literature because I am used to the negative, flame-friendly world of the Internet. My mother taught me modesty early on, which I use because 1) I am modest and 2) No one attacks someone for being modest. I didn't want people coming out of the woodwork to set me straight and tell me what I had written was trash.

I look at OTHER works as literary, sure. The Chabons and the Franzens and the Rushdies. I guess I didn't give my book enough credit; I just assumed that a book about a gay boy drinking and sexing his way to self-discovery through modern day Manhattan couldn't possibly be literary!

And, finally, I know what sells to my target audience. I say "great literature" and they're already fleeing the scene, their iPhones out as they try to distract themselves. They want excitement! Sex! A character dealing with problems similar to their own, but ratcheted up for ultimate schadenfreude.

KIRPAL GORDON: It’s this unique combination---mastery of the new marketing technologies and mastery of your material from a literary point of view---that gives me hope in the aftermath of an industry destroyed by greed. In other words, you don’t need to be a midlist author waiting for someone to give you the big break. I understand Amazon has invited you into its free publicity program.

JUSTIN LUKE: Technically, Amazon gave me a 3-book deal! It's the whole hog: ePublishing, print publishing, brick and mortar bookstore distribution, and a full PR, marketing and everything else blitz. Essentially, it's like the old fashioned way of publishing, but pimped out to the extreme with the world's largest and most successful company behind me all the way. Again, a dream come true. If I'm going to have a publishing house behind me, having that house live within Amazon makes it that much better.

KIRPAL GORDON: What’s next? Tell us about the short stories you are writing and marketing uniquely.

JUSTIN LUKE: Oh there is always something next! Right now I'm wrapping up the fifth and final short story in my "Gulliver's Travelers" series. It's an eBook-only series that features the secondary characters of my original novel. Each story is told in first person, from one of these characters, and they are all tied in to each other because they take place on the same day. I take it one step further still because the day when all of these stories takes place actually occurs IN THE TIMELINE of my original novel. Basically I answer the question: where was every one else on the day when Gulliver did X?

I did this because, when I first self-published my novel, I figured I'd need to stack the odds in my favor to get attention. And so I committed to write 5 short stories, as eBooks only, all based on the original novel. What I wanted to do was flood the Amazon Kindle's gay store with my name and writing. And, because they were eBooks only, I could charge very little to sell them (each is $2.99… you can't even get a slice of pizza for that any longer). And what it seems to be doing, based on sales, is creating a funnel. For readers of Gulliver, they now have more to read. For those who don't know Gulliver, there's the chance I can reel them in to me by enticing them with a cheap and exciting mini-book that is tied into 4 others, and all of which are related to my original novel. And, to my fortune, it seems to be working!


KIRPAL GORDON: Your grandmother, Edith Zirilli, may she rest in peace, was my neighbor. A daily meditator and a woman with literary talent but little access to the lit world, she would be so proud of what you have accomplished. Do you think of her when you are out giving readings and shows?


JUSTIN LUKE: I always think of my Grandmother, actually. I was lucky, as the oldest child in my extended family, to have the most time with her. She is actually the first acknowledgment in the back of my novel. I am convinced that the writing bones in my body stem genetically back all the way to her. And, judging from how much my mom smiles when she sees my growing success, I imagine Grandma is doing the same.

It's a shame that she was born in a time where a woman writing was frowned upon. I wish she had been given the chance. I like to think that she's watching me, and she's happy that she's getting a shot vicariously through me.

KIRPAL GORDON: How can friends at Giant Steps Press stay in touch with all of what you are doing?

JUSTIN LUKE: Super easy! I'm a bit of a web nerd, so I make sure to be strongly represented online. You can find links to everything I do and sell and offer at my official web site, www.JustinLukeNYC.com. From there you can find hundreds of ways to get in contact with me and keep tabs, I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Vimeo, YouTube, etc. etc. etc.

If you'd like to find out more about my book, there's always www.GrabGully.com.

       

Veterans Day Blues

As much as I respect the need to pay homage to the men, women and children who served in the military to safeguard our rapidly disappearing freedoms, I am terribly distressed over the non-evolving state of man’s consciousness level and the sad fact that we still require maintaining strong defense systems to protect ourselves from each other! Even though we profess to all be created equal, we seem to have no qualms about killing one another.

Although it is comprised of only two letters, the word “if” is the largest word in the English language. So much rests upon “if.” The majority of people on Planet Earth, regardless of denomination, claim they believe in a higher power or a Divine Entity. For argument’s sake, allow me to call this entity, God. IF people really and truly believe in this God and his ever-watchful eye, would they behave the way they do? IF humanity really and truly believes in equality, would there be hunger, famine, prejudice and hate? IF we really and truly believe that God created the world and all that’s upon it, would we pollute and ravish the very land that sustains us? IF we really and truly believe that God is synonymous with love, how is it we’ve become divided to the point where we kill in his name? Some folks would answer these questions by giving credence to the existence of a devil or evil spirit. IF God is love and love conquers all, what’s the problem? No matter how one chooses to slice it, for me, it just doesn’t add up! Anything we desire, including peace, is possible. The sad truth is we probably don’t want it bad enough!

IF we all conducted our lives according to the two greatest commandments, love God and love each other as oneself, there would be no need for armies, police, prisons, locks, bolts, security alarms, watch dogs and weapons. From the way humans conduct their lives, I would venture to say that most of our prayers, worship services, religious rituals and holy books have been a complete waste of time. The only way to prove the existence of God in our lives is through the ability of each of us to TRULY love one another. For whatever reason, man has unconsciously reversed reality with illusion. We have put so much stock into the bullshit we created for our corporal lives, such as money and the acquisition of land, power and material things, we seemed to have forgotten the certainty that one day we will die a physical death and all the wealth we have accumulated will amount to less than zero.

I never quite understood man’s inhumanity towards other men. I never understood war and I especially don’t understand the role God plays in the lives of people when hurt, suffering and unfairness seem to be abundant. Somehow people tend to treat God as a life insurance policy. In other words, just in case a place of eternal damnation does exist, better to be on the safe side and get to church every now and then. Somehow it’s a whole lot easier looking for God in a building with stained glass windows rather than to search the depths of one’s soul.

I am grateful to every soldier, sailor, marine and fighter pilot who risked his life so that I have the freedom to speak my mind and worship or not worship as I choose. My heart goes out to every service man and woman who had to waste precious years of his or her life away from the comforts of home, exposed to the horrors of killing or the fear of trying to remain alive. My hope is that one day what we perceive as illusion or reality will shift. I long to see the presence of God, Love, Divinity, Positive Energy or whatever we choose to name the beautiful power controlling the Universe in the eyes of every man, woman, child and creature roaming the Earth. I yearn for the day when armed forces become completely unnecessary and obsolete. I’m a simple human being. If I can believe in this vision with my heart, mind and soul, then it is absolutely possible for all men to do the same. What’s the problem?       

GETTING LUCKY: An Interview with novelist DENIS GRAY

KIRPAL GORDON: I’ve been a longtime fan of your drama and fiction, but “Lucky” is a new direction for me in reading your work because it’s not just a captivating love story but a novel chock-full of historical and evocative details about New Orleans and the riverboats and the jazz bands that went up and down the Mississippi River during the Roaring Twenties. What was it like researching this novel?

 DENIS GRAY: Well, the first thing I should tell you, is after reading  a review in the New York Times of “Jazz on the River” authored by William Howland Kenney, I knew I was hooked. That I had to write a story set in Louisiana during the ‘20s. This book gave me a historical reference for “Lucky.” The next thing it meant was, I had to come up with a story to match the great state of Louisiana, and, specifically, New Orleans. Now that meant I had to do a lot of research to understand a place that’s been romanticized since forever. And so I tried to figure out what approach to take and what books to read that would best serve my needs. Once I was able to do that, I, as they say, was off and running! The books I read to prepare me for the story were really great. Information. Information. Information. I’m the kind of writer though, who uses maybe 2 percent (if that much) of the information I glean from my research in a novel. What I’m really after, is the spirit of the subject, since I’m not a nonfiction writer. I try to structure my stories real tight, but if I develop the characters correctly, they’ll make the story work for me; and make the writing easy. Yes, it was a lot of fun researching Lucky. I enjoyed every waking minute of it.

KIRPAL GORDON: I am particularly taken by your insights into the jazz life, especially how musicians related to one another as well as a hostile Jim Crow situation that at times misunderstood the music. The way, for example, that Noble Prince’s Red Hot Rhythm Band welcomes youngbuck trumpet-playing Victor Malreaux onto the riverboat struck me so powerfully.

DENIS GRAY: Yeah, Jim Crow, blacks and whites, separate but equal. You know I don’t really get into any real politics regarding Jim Crow in the book, but it does loom over some portions of it. So there’s atmosphere, and you the reader know you’re in the midst of an unjust system. Walter Von Bulow, the owner of the riverboat the “Morning Queen” and the Von Bulow steamship company, tries to create a comfortable but unrealistic setting for his black employees on the ship, but the situation is still unequal no matter, since it is a system he alone cannot buck. But Von Bulow’s the one who hears Victor Malreaux, this young, “hot trumpet player, “youngbuck” as you so aptly described him, and invites him to audition for Noble Prince on the Morning Queen. I think what I was after with Victor in that situation, was to see how an old, seasoned veteran band would take to a youngbuck, since they could be defined as the practitioners of this music. I mean how is tradition preserved if not through one generation passing it down to another: Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Satchmo, Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Navarro –so on and so forth. So Victor Malreaux allowed me to scope out that situation in a clear, accessible way.
                                                                                                            

KIRPAL GORDON: In jazz guitarist Pat Martino’s new memoir with Bill Milkowski, “Here and Now!,” he notes that when he moved to Harlem the jazz music he was studying & the culture of Harlem were one thing, not two, and he laments that kids who just learn the notes miss the larger context. Would you agree?

DENIS GRAY: Honestly, I don’t keep up with the new jazz cats on today’s jazz scene. I’m still pretty much tuned to the past with my jazz listening. But who thought I’d be quoting P. Diddy, but he once said about hip hop, that it was a lifestyle, clothes, attitude, etcetera. So Pat Martino might have something there. I know the old players, music was in the air they breathed; the music was all around them. They dressed it and ate it and lived it excessively, thus, embedded it deeply into the culture’s psyche. So I’ll let Pat Martino debate that one out, but, like I said, he might be on to something that’s relevant.

KIRPAL GORDON: The novel seems a huge undertaking, especially when Lucky enters the tale. She puts her life at risk as she leaves Harlem and arrives in New Orleans in an attempt to reconcile her past. Did you map it all out first or did you just start writing?

DENIS GRAY: No, I don’t do outlines, but I do “map” it all out in my head. Man, there’s a lot of mapping out too! I take the story here, test it there, hope this is plausible, delete that, and so on and so forth during the process. But once the story crystallizes itself, and I feel I can think of some situations that will give the story interest and impetus, and that I have an ending that makes sense and is logical, natural, and unvarnished, I’m ready to sit down and write. Then when writing, it’s when everything opens up, the middle part of the story where all the juicy stuff and surprises lie for a writer; when they know they’re onto something, and it takes you places you thought you’d never go. For me, because my imagining a story is just a germ, a speck of something, when I’m finished with the book, I think it’s ten times better than what I could ever imagined it before writing it. And if I don’t remember three quarters of what I wrote during the first draft, that excites me even more! Just a quick anecdote. I remember I did a sequel for a novella, “Benny’s Last Blast,” and I had the plotlines for the new book, “Benny, God, and the Blues,” down pat except for one vital transition I needed. I actually waited eight years for that one transition to finally come to me! But I knew it would be worth the wait, since it did provide a great subtext for the story. I think my patience was based on my instincts as a writer—at least I’d like to think that it was.

KIRPAL GORDON: If you’ll pardon the pun, how can readers get “Lucky?” Are there any plans to do readings or concerts with this book?

DENIS GRAY: Thanks for asking. “Lucky” is online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It’s also an e-Book, so Kindle and Nook make it available for purchase. (In fact, I’ve read “Lucky” off my wife’s iPad.) Readings, I’ve done a lot of them. I vendor also. Concerts, no. My web site is www.denisgraybooks.com. I’d love to hear from readers. And I’m on Facebook—so you can ‘friend’ me.

Taking Giant Steps in Paint: An Interview with ANATOLE IWANCZUK

KIRPAL GORDON:  I was wandering through a recent show at Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition and stopped dead in my tracks, Tony, when I saw your large and incredible paintings, especially the one with the red dot on it that the staff told me was the largest sale BWAC had made at that exhibit.  Besides being one of the best students I've had at Fordham/Lincoln Center, I knew you were a great food and wine guy with a long-running restaurant on the Upper East Side, but how did you come to painting, and how did you arrive at this air brush technique?  Your compositions may be based on Kandinsky and other modernists, but you take me to new places. 

ANATOLE IWANCZUK:  A very close friend of mine, Gunilla Feigenbaum, who is truly a wonderful artist, had been urging me for several years to try painting. At one point, she suggested I try airbrush, and generously loaned me her airbrush and compressor to encourage me to venture into painting. To my surprise I enjoyed the process and was happy to discover that I had some ability. 

KIRPAL GORDON: So what happened next?

    ANATOLE IWANCZUK: I set out to teach myself about color and the process of painting. I chose for this task to try to emulate some of the modern masters, like Kandinsky, de Lempicka and Tanning, because I loved their work. As I gained confidence in my techniques and proficiency, I sought to explore the boundaries between invention and reproduction. The images I choose are well known paintings from the period of industrialization – Leger and de Chirico are particular favorites because they incorporate the joining of man and machine. 

  

KIRPAL GORDON:  Do you set any limits on how you work or what you use?

ANATOLE IWANCZUK:The limitations I create for myself are that every part of the painting must be executed with air brush and acrylics, tools unavailable to those artists. I try to stay as close to the original as possible, and by the time the painting has finished its journey it has become an entirely new object. In addition to this approach, I am more recently trying to create paintings that reflect my own ideas. Like Tang Horse.

KIRPAL GORDON:   I noticed you do commissions.  Does your approach differ when the project is a commission?

ANATOLE IWANCZUK:  When I am commissioned to duplicate a specific existing work, like that poster, the part of me that is concerned with execution completely takes over. However, when I am commissioned to do any work I desire, I am free to paint as if not on commission, therefore not affected by it.

KIRPAL GORDON:  How can viewers at Giant Steps see more of your work?

ANATOLE IWANCZUK:  I welcome them to friend me at Facebook, go to the photos and click on the artwork. I'm also with Behance Network and look forward to opening my own new website in a few weeks: DoubleTakeArt.net.

KIRPAL GORDON:  And for those of us who want to see the work up close and personal, where and when is the next show?

  

ANATOLE IWANCZUK:  The next show is called “Wide Open” at BWAC (Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, http://bwac.org/) in Red Hook, March 18 through April 1, 2012. 

    

DINOSAUR THOUGHTS

 In the early 1970’s, Marvin Gaye soulfully asked the question of questions, “What’s going on?”

In 1984 Marvin was sadly shot to death by his own father and today as we are fast approaching the year 2012, his words continue to resonate with thinkers and seekers around the globe.

Throughout many of my fifty-nine years of life on Planet Earth I was inadvertently conditioned to fear something or someone. I remember as a grammar school student how my teachers instructed the class to take cover under our desks in the event bombs started dropping from the sky upon St. Fidelis. The thought never even occurred to me to ask how a desk was supposed to protect us. I was taught to fear Cuba, Castro, Russia, Khrushchev, Communism, Socialism, black people, Satan and a wrathful God. It’s a wonder I didn’t turn out like most Americans, addicted to Prozac and a host of other antidepressants.

Risking that I may come off sounding like a relic, a character out of ancient history, I seem to have fond memories of the past, while having misgivings about a shaky future. I affectionately remember when concert halls, like New York City’s Fillmore East and Palladium, had reserved seating. $3.50, $4.50 or $5.50 got concert-goers four to five hours of the greatest music ever made in a venue where they could sit comfortably and partake in, devoid of paranoia, a mood enhancer of choice.  The last two concerts I was obligated to attend took place in huge arenas with no seating and exorbitant ticket prices. My son plays in a touring band that has had the opportunity to open for some headlining acts, and being a supportive dad, I was there. Fans eagerly piled in, uncomfortably crammed one on top of the other, standing and sweating for hours on end, bopping heads to the hypnotic thumping of bass and drums that set the back-beat to very unmelodious verses, choruses and meaningless lyrics. How anybody could honestly claim they were having a good time was baffling.

My daughter recently turned thirty. Her boyfriend organized a party that was given at the open air bar/club of a hotel on the lower west side of Manhattan. My wife and I are very fond of my daughter’s friends and we were more than happy to respond by clicking the “I’m attending” tab on the E-vite, another convenience tool of the social networking generation. Maybe I’m getting old, but I just don’t understand the mentality of clubbing. Partiers were four deep at the bar as three highly attentive bartenders vigorously mixed drinks, opened beers and ran tabs on a double deck of credit cards. The speakers pulsed while an over-exuberant DJ, who looked like he came direct from the Jersey Shore, programmed shrill and continuous techno pop, a genre I wrongfully assumed died in the 90’s. I was on my fourth Patron margarita which aided in my surrendering to the obnoxious drone of the computer driven rhythms that instigated the tapping of my feet and the bopping of my head. Before I knew it I was out on the dance floor like the old man at weddings who all the young people point to and chuckle at because of his stiff and antiquated moves. The pleasant buzz I had reached helped me to conveniently forget that I was old enough to be the father of everyone in the room.

“Hey, Mr. R, are you having fun?” one of my daughter’s equally beautiful college friends called out.

“If this is what you call having fun,” I wondered, “I suppose I am…” and gave her a great big smile with a thumbs up!

It did my heart good to see my daughters and company having such a great time, but it also made me realize how we occupy two completely different worlds. With the help of some Tequila, I was able to comfortably be a part of the world of my daughter’s generation, a generation living through some very strange times. Until the recent protests going on all over America, I was about ready to give up on today’s young people. When I was a kid, the songs I listened to stirred my mind and soul, not strictly my genitals. I cared about the earth; I raised my voice against war and violence and would like to think I lent a hand in ending the insanity in Viet Nam. I marched against a greedy establishment, but looking at the shape of things today, I seriously wonder if it did any good.

At the moment, people are gathering throughout the world, raising their voices in protest against corporate greed and the disappearance of the middle class. I have been watching closely and listening attentively to the gripes of the protestors and to the reactions of those opposed. Cries from the opposition have accused the jobless of being lazy, unmotivated cry-babies looking for government handouts. It’s easy for those who are still collecting hefty paychecks and living in homes that are in not in danger of foreclosing to judge and point fingers. It’s easy for those who are living comfortably to close their eyes to the irresponsible behavior of corporate CEO’s. The accusations that are being fired back and forth between the well-heeled and the agitated struggling majority are ludicrous to say the least. The problems facing the world today didn’t happen overnight. They have been brewing for decades and it was only a matter of time before the shit hit the fan. Those who have been content working a blue collar job, happy just to be getting by, are no longer getting by. Sadly, as American industry shuts its doors, the jobs have become scarcer. As corporations swallow one another, even those who were once holding managerial positions are standing in unemployment lines. The problems are real; they are not figments of the demonstrators’ imaginations.

For years, politicians have been groomed, hand selected, not elected, members of a club whose futures are secure. Sooner or later, they all get bought, unable to resist the exorbitant amounts of money offered to them by lobbyists for supporting their greedy, unapologetic agendas.  It’s no longer a secret that those who have somehow managed to find their way into the plush seats of  our corrupt government are merely soulless puppets whose strings are being pulled by the faceless yet very powerful few who control the world. In order to confront them we must first sever the strings and overthrow the conscienceless marionettes who obediently do their dirty work. People are fed up. They want the dishonesty, the greed and the irresponsibility of world government to cease. They want to see a bright future ahead for their children and their children’s children.

Personally, I don’t know what the answer is, but taking to the streets in peaceful protest is a start. I think world awareness to what has really been going on behind the scenes is long overdue. Too many of us have either been asleep, distracted by the mind-numbing garbage spewing forth from the media or simply overwhelmed by trying to stay afloat. I have nothing against wealth but everything against poverty, especially in a universe of boundless abundance. The lies of scarcity have deceived men into living lives occupied by fear and greed. Chancing that I may come off sounding like the idealistic hippie freak I am, I will humbly speak my mind by saying the only remedy for this backwards planet is to be governed by the golden rule…Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Not everyone has what it takes to be the president of a huge corporation, not everyone has what it takes to be a custodian, but no matter what position life places somebody in, he or she has to face it by being fair, honest and compassionate. Nothing else will work. Jesus said it. Gandhi said it. The Beatles said it…All we need is love.

Bill Graham’s Fillmore East was one of the greatest musical venues ever. The world’s best bands were happy to perform there in front of the most appreciative audiences. It truly was a gift. Record companies and managers started to demand more money for their bands which would have forced Bill to raise ticket prices, something he was dead set against. The result was the closing of the Fillmore. I don’t know if this is such a good analogy, but to me, it sure seems like greed has spoiled just about everything.