Saturday, September 10, 2011

10 years gone....


As a kid growing up in Queens, my Mom loved taking us into the city to break up the routines of normal everyday life of working hard, going to school and the effects off my Papa's drinking on our family.

In the 70's a time when New York has been remembered as a dark period (no 1977 New York City blackout pun intended) this is the New York most of us native New Yorkers remember.
I'd pass the time by drawing what I saw. The skyline of New York city, the Empire State Building, The Chrysler building, the corporate commuter helicopter landing on the Pan Am Building, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, etc.

One fall Sunday, she decided it was time to visit the newly completed World Trade Center. I'd already known by age of 5, that by just going out on our firesecape, I was afraid of heights, and disappointgly knew I wouldn't become a fireman which I thought was the coolest job to have as a grownup. :-( Even so we made the trek from Astoria downtown to Cortlandt Street. The RR. One subway. Awesome.

Once we got out into the street, I was amazed, looking up into the sky putting my chin along one the towers silver edges and following it up into the heavens. We went inside, waited on line, and took the elevators up to the 110th floor, the top, the observatory deck of the south tower. I gingerly walked around and took all the sights. Uptown, Brooklyn, Queens, the Statue of Liberty, Jersey, etc. We were on top of the world! My sister took the above picture on that day.

Flash forward 24 years later. September 11, 2011. After seeing both American flight 11 and United 175 crash into and destroy the towers, from Park Row, near City hall, all I could think of was that I was one of countless visitors to the observatory deck. I'd stood up there with my parents in 1977! I'd felt what I thought was the heated breeze of the explosion of Flight 175 on my arms. Was I just imagining that? Was the explosion that massive that we all felt it down here on the street?
I was in shock, speechless and afraid again amongst the crowds of devastated onlookers.

In shock and knowing it would soon be a disaster scene, I decided to try to get home. After taking the uptown 6 train and making it as far as Grand Central, everything stopped, including public transportation. As I walked around watching people in the streets, telling each other what was going on, I reached into my right short pocket. I realized I was out of cigartettes. I walked to the closest deli I could find and contemplated buying a beer while paying for my Newport Lights. I'd only been 5 years, clean and sober. I thought if I was gonna die, I was gonna get drunk one last time.

I chose not to.

And thankfully so.

As walked back to 40th and Park. There was my Mom wandering around with everyone else to watch a building's lobby t.v., listen to someone's radio, etc. I quickly thought about how much more devastated my Mom would've been if I'd walked up to her, forty in a brown paper bag, drinking....

We looked at each other, hugged and cried.

At amost that exact moment we heard the rumble of a fighter jet's engines, and still hugging my Mom, I asked God for it to be one of ours. I found out later this was the US Air National Guard's F-15 that had been scrambled from Otis AFB in Massachusetts and screamed down to New York City . It was too late.

Both my parents have passed away since, my father from liver cancer in 2007, and my Mom from Lou Gehrig's disease in 2009. They spent the last of their years in a post-9/11 world.
My father in denial that towers were gone, angered at CNN's images of Osama bin Laden sitting on the couch, weakened by his chemo, and my Mom somberly listening to the "reading of the names" lying unable to move in her bed, every very year after that.
I miss them and love them so much.

Ten years gone...9/11/01-9/11/11. I'll never forget the day we all stood on the South Tower of the World Trade Center, observatory deck scared of being up so high.

We'll all never, ever forget... 9/11/01

Peace & love....

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Rest In Peace, king of style.... Case/Kase2


We lost an art legend this past weekend.
Jeff "Case/Kase 2" Brown passed away after
battling lung cancer, he was only 53.

Although I never met Case, his face & work
are engrained in my as well as many of our minds,
thanks to reading "Subway Art" and/or seeing
"Style Wars" where he said said the infamous
"The king of what? The king of styyyyyyle..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd_pkb5tkn8

Two weeks ago, while I was at the Usual Suspects 2 show opening
at Urban Folk Art Gallery in Brooklyn, I wished I'd been there
a few months earlier after seeing that Case had checked out a
show there.

He's part of group of iconic artists that we saw as kids, that
influence the creative vision & styles in paintings we create today
and in the future.

Rest in peace, king of style, Case/Kase 2...you will not be forgotten....

photo: Martha Cooper
video: Tony Silver/Henry Chalfant





Re-cap of the Usual Suspects 2 show at Urban Folk Art Gallery on Brooklyn Bugle


It was honor to have two of my latest paintings in The Usual Suspects 2 show
two weeks ago at The Urban Folk Art Gallery in Brooklyn again this year...

The show featured work by some of NY's legends...
I'm already looking forward to the next one!
Here's a re-cap on The Brooklyn Bugle.
Enjoy...Peace!

http://brooklynbugle.com/2011/08/09/urban-folk-art-gallery-showcases-local-graffiti-legends/

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Rest in paradise...Jasmin Maxine Nunez


Thanks to those who helped with re-posting and re-tweeting the info and missing person flyers.

Although I never met Jasmin, she's cousins with a very dear friend and fellow artist of mine.

That was my connection to the concern about her whereabouts beginning early Monday morning until the unfortunate confirmation later in the day, that she'd passed away. She was only 22 years old.

Please say a prayer for, what I was told by her family, was a vibrant, happy, wonderful, hard working & family oriented young woman...You'll be in my prayers from now on...
Rest in peace...

Monday, June 20, 2011

MISSING PERSON...PLEASE READ!


A dear friend & fellow artist of mine is searching for her cousin
Jasmin Nunez, who has been missing since June 5th.
If you any information contact myself of the number
on the flyer above...Your help is greatly appreciated!
-Peace



Thursday, May 12, 2011

"Bit by bit" art show featuring new works by Gina Marr & Mr. Gif



Come check out new works by artists,
Gina Marr & Mr. Gif Monday, May 25th
at:

Northern Soul
557 1st Street
Hoboken, NJ

Opening reception 8pm

See ya'll there!

Monday, May 9, 2011

OLD CANVAS ( Yesterday & Today) 2009


I don't update on here enough, but I realized I never posted this one....
I painted this for Roz One's (TC5 XMEN) Hell's Kitchen Show
back in fall 2009. The interesting connection is I completed
this at the weeks before my Mom passed away & the show was
in her old neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen where my parents had
emigrated to in 1962....Rest in paradise, Mom & Papa....

It's 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas entitled "Yesterday & Today" I'd
envisioned what a modern day bomber would look like hopping
an 'ol skool NYC transit turnstile. I used my old home station,
30th Ave. for inspiration.

Thanks for checking it out....Peace ya'll....