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Pages while visiting family and friends in Germany, France, and Switzerland while roaming with Maria in our little black French Citroen car...passing picturesque cathedrals, solemn World War One and Two battlefields and cemeteries, getting thrown onto detours that led to even more intimate places, amazing market days, and meeting many helpful and kind people along the way...the journey is the destination.

Pages while visiting family and friends in Germany, France, and Switzerland while roaming with Maria in our little black French Citroen car...passing picturesque cathedrals, solemn World War One and Two battlefields and cemeteries, getting thrown onto detours that led to even more intimate places, amazing market days, and meeting many helpful and kind people along the way...the journey is the destination.

In our world of social media, it seems like every person of note is taken down a notch through scandal or corruption. In the past, some of these "icons" were protected by journalists but that is nearly impossible now. This new transparency is welcomed by most but somehow always seems to leave a sour taste after all the sordid information is disseminated. Perhaps the term "role model" is outdated. Anyway, I began these pages in my sketchbook with this idea in mind...and picked a giant colossus head from another sketchbook from Boboli Gardens in Florence.

In our world of social media, it seems like every person of note is taken down a notch through scandal or corruption. In the past, some of these "icons" were protected by journalists but that is nearly impossible now. This new transparency is welcomed by most but somehow always seems to leave a sour taste after all the sordid information is disseminated. Perhaps the term "role model" is outdated. Anyway, I began these pages in my sketchbook with this idea in mind...and picked a giant colossus head from another sketchbook from Boboli Gardens in Florence.

flashback to road trips...Maria behind the wheel of a Peugeot or Opel...drinking espresso and cappuccino...wandering around back roads and villages...becoming engulfed in a sea of sheep on the highway...getting stuck in a busy roundabout and not being able to get out in a rush hour...experiencing being lost...only often to find better things than what we intended...fado

The weather continues to cooperate here in December...quite a difference from last winter...I've had to battle a few sprinkles on my walks but overall I can't complain. I remember the first time my mother-in-law came to visit us here and saw a grainery...I told her they were our "cathedrals" but she thought they were a little scary. After growing up with cathedrals and castles in Europe, she didn't quite buy into my theory. I still think they possess a presence on the flat, empty prairie.

Maria and I usually hash out some of the world's problems every morning....of course, nothing is resolved through the news and media
with our added expertise....still, many of my creative works evolve out of these conversations.

Assisted living can be so much like going back to college dorm life. The residents hang out, each meals together, and still endure all the dramas that "twenty somethings" experience.

As the US continues to try to privatize everything in site, mounds of documents and data are required to prove findings...it's enough to make me feel like I'm actually living in Terry Gilliam's film, "Brazil" at times with a touch of George Orwell thrown in on the side. Even though the left- brain/right-brain theory has been discounted, it still feels like a left-brain dominance is evident for many in the work force. Creativity has always been viewed with suspicion since "left-brainers" have a difficult time measuring it. Of course, this piece goes a little over the top....

I was a weird kid...while others wanted to go to Disneyworld, I wanted to go to Civil War battlefields. My uncle was a big Civil War buff and I even took my dad's rifle that had been used in the Civil War and passed down through the family to "Show-and-Tell" in elementary. Imagine doing that today....it was so heavy, I could barely carry it. My childhood friend and I used to set up huge battle re-enactments in my back yard with toy soldiers and many of my book reports for school had to do with war and I always added grisly illustrations. Then, I began to read the incredibly eloquent Civil War diaries in middle school and then books like "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Catch-22" in high school and college and my mind changed. I went to some World War One and Two battlefields in Europe...the details of the Battle of the Somme is something every student should know the next time someone wants to glamorize patriotism. I slowly realized then that most wars are waged by the rich for land grabs and money while it is always paid for in blood by the poor. This sort of led me to this image.