The market is down, and there’s lots of frowns. But we keep on looking. Looking for a house that’s affordable, adorable and almost livable.

American dream, apple pie, white picket fence, and all. For all. Their are open houses all around town. Everywhere you look, homes are for sale. Balloons are a flyin. The reports have started tricklin. About adjustable mortgages adjusting thousands of incomes and weighing heavily on their outcomes of life, liberty, and the pursuit of their realities.

As the flag keeps on flying, as our kids keep on dying in the same old foreign lands. While walking on the same old burning sands. As their oil stained caskets get shipped back across the ocean. Back to their mother’s land.

Even with all this confusion, a fusion, I’m still wanting in. I’m still wanting to have a place where we can plant our own seed. Where the children grow like weeds. Where I can plant my family crest and do my very best to be an honorable man. And try my very best to be a good example for the little ones around. But for now, I’ll just keep looking in town.

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with my little girl. We have one of those backpacks for strapping your little ones in and just going. It is a sunny day in Riverside. I absolutely love the architecture here. It makes me feel like I’m in another city. That’s a good feeling because Jacksonville can be a bit depressing at times. Especially when you know friends of yours are out and about in great cities like New York, Seattle, and San Fransisco.

We went to Memorial park after a stop by our neighborhood Starbucks. There isn’t a mom and pop coffee shop in the area. I don’t think folks would go there if there was anyways. Starbucks is so accepted by everyone. All types. Folks were there who just got out of Sunday school. Folks were there who were just waking up from a Saturday night binge drinking session. Piercings, tattoos, and Sunday school. All in one happy environment curated by the all knowing Starbucks cultural committee.

The park was interesting. My little girl Claire had a blast trying to get as far away from me as possible when I put her down. Walking fifty meters away then she was returned by the invisible leash she has for her parents, she has yet to understand. Security being something she needs. Something we all need.

Homeless folks were gathered in a little secret corner of the park. Picking flowers it seemed. I heard one mention a caterpillar. They were rough looking with beards, and such, but were picking flowers in the park. What a great scene it was. I wondered about the homeless situation in Jacksonville. I wondered about art making and how it fits into social issues such as homelessness. To be honest I feel a bit stingy directing my creative energy towards a canvas that folks will judge and talk about, and eventually put above their couch. I feel it is possible that artists owe it to themselves to use their creative energy for the good of mankind. Possibly?

My mind began to drift towards the issue of low pay for school teachers for some reason. That’s an issue that everyone understands. Knows about. Talks about. Yet nothing is done. Folks have decided that that’s just it. The reality is that if you decide to serve your community as a teacher you will struggle to make a living the rest of your life. I really don’t understand why everyone accepts it as a reality and doesn’t try to do anything about it?

I have decided that if we really want to make change on issues then we must act individually. Since our government will not make change on the issues that we care about then we must act publicly as a whole. Or not? What do you think? Can we make a change? Do you want to make a change? How should we begin?

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I’ve been wondering why I’ve seen representations of deer in so many visual artist’s work lately?

I think it is one part fashion and one part folks getting tired of being surrounded with this modern world. I have observed more animals in general being portrayed since 911. The deer to me is a symbol of the way it used to be. Billy bob hunting with his cousin. The movie “Deer Hunter” makes me think of good old boys growing up in small towns, growing old, and being happy about the little things. Their favorite team winning the Super Bowl, etc.?

I did a series of work (click here to see) investigating this in 2001 before 911. The dot com bubble had burst, and to me their was a sense of getting back to my roots that I was investigating. I believe a lot of folks were doing the same at this time. I never hunted but I grew up in a small town in the south where hunting and fishing were as much a part of growing up as sports were. I somehow was able to escape hunting and fishing camp weekend trips with my friends. And really was just never invited. Maybe I wondered why, or how I never became a part of that lifestyle?

Deers are tough. They are roughed. They make me think of surviving. Feeding my family. Taking care of my own. Taking care of your own. Now the the icon of the trophy deer is on gallery walls, and kitsch campy t-shirts. It abounds as a truly American icon. Maybe in a few years American artists will see another icon as fashionable?

Maybe they will focus on the strip malls, and gas stations that are everywhere. Who knows really. One thing I believe is that there is a collective unconscious in the symbols that are used throughout from East coast to West coast. No one started it. It always was. We think together. We feel together. And now it seems Americans wants to go hunting together. Don’t you?

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ideas. invent. define. refine. this world.

I want to have roof gardens in Five Points.

I want biofueled RVs that are totally off the grid and can sustain life fully, forever.

I want to start a cooperative art boutique.

I want to curate local storefront windows with local contemporary art.

I want R.A.D.O. to develop an arts community that uses all green building supplies surrounded by sculpture parks and live work spaces for local artists.

I want to go to graduate school for arts administration in order to learn more about nonprofit arts management.

I want to start a nonprofit that develops an after school program that is run by emerging local artists.

I want to start a flourescent light bulb door to door sales program.

I want to open a green products local hardware store.

I want to buy a historic home and restore it fully.

I want to be involved in social programs that use art as a vehicle for social change.

I want to buy a trailer and use it as a traveling gallery of contemporary micro art.

Don’t you?

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