S O - K R A T E S

"There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent."

Michael de Montaigne, 1598

L O O K _ O U T _ B E L O W

"Unless you take big risks you are not going to learn a lot... the interesting things that happen in life involve precipices."

Robert Storr, 11.19.10

A R M I S T I C E _ D A Y

S T R O N G _ T O _ T H E _ F I N I S H

"Olive oil has been more than mere food to the people of the Mediterranean: it has been medicinal, magical, an endless source of fascination and wonder and the foundation of great wealth and power. The olive tree, symbol of abundance, glory and peace, gave its leafy branches to the crown the victorious in friendly games and bloody war, and the oil of its fruit had anointed the noblest of heads throughout history." - Global Gourmet

B E A N S _ B E A N S _ A R E _ G O O D _ F O R _ Y O U R _ H E A R T

Eating and Drinking

The region that is home to Florence has one of the most versatile and varied-form cooking traditions in Italy, that we have already mentioned in our tourists’ guide to Tuscany. We are going to try and provide a more specific view, limiting ourselves to the city of Florence and the area immediately around it.

Florentine cooking is linked to a tradition of simple dishes prepared with genuine, tasty but plain ingredients, which has recently been reconsidered by the world of more sophisticated cuisine. Cereals, bread, vegetable and oil (which must be extra-virgin) are the basis of many recipes that just have to be tried in one of the many restaurants in Florence.

Simple food, such as cannellini beans and other vaguely repulsive ingredients such as tripe and livers are transformed into pleasant, tasty dishes, served on both stalls and in local inns and also in luxury restaurants. We can therefore find: fagioli all'uccelletto (beans), boiled and then fried in oil and tomato sauce; trippa alla fiorentina, (tripe) covered in tomato and grated parmesan cheese; lampredotto, the darkest part of tripe, used for soups and risottos, but also liked by many locals as a filling for a sandwich; crostini toscani with liver paté. And the unforgettable "fiorentina" a cut of meat from the Chianina cow, famous worldwide, to be tried in any restaurant in Florence.

F I R E _ B U R N I N G

Incendiary

by Vernon Scannell

That one small boy with a face like pallid cheese

And burnt-out little eyes could make a blaze

As brazen, fierce and huge, as red and gold

And zany yellow as the one that spoiled

Three thousand guineas' worth of property

And crops at Godwin's Farm on Saturday

Is frightening---as fact and metaphor:

An ordinary match intended for

The lighting of a pipe or kitchen fire

Misused may set a whole menagerie

Of flame-fanged tigers roaring hungrily.

And frightening, too, that one small boy should set

The sky on fire and choke the stars to heat

Such skinny limbs and such a little heart

Which would have been content with one warm kiss

Had there been anyone to offer this.

B I R D _ I N _ T H E _ H A N D . . .

"God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest."

- P. D. James

B I C Y C L E _ P R O G R E S S

Here's a quick look at my process behind the last post. I'm not very excited with the final product, but I did enjoy the sketch part very much this time around. I feel like I really had an opportunity to work on it. And I'm actually very happy with the Charles Schultz practice head.

I _ W A N T _ TO _ R I D E _ M Y _ B I C Y C L E

"Life is like a ten speed bicycle.

Most of us have gears we never use."

- Charles Schultz

N E W _ F A N G L E D _ M O V I N G _ P I C T U R E S

Hello everyone. It's been quite a while since I've said much, I've been busy attempting to clean out a workable studio space and manage two jobs while still having time for sleep. And seeing how this post is coming at 1:20am, I clearly still have some work to do.

Well, long story short, I've finally upload my animation from the Experimental Animation class i took this past May with John O'Donnell, and I'm here to share it all with you.

You can either watch it HERE on vimeo or HERE on youtube.

Let me know what you all thing!

A W A R D S _ A N D _ J U N K

Well, it's been awhile since I've been blogging, but I realize that I need keep doing this to keep myself up and running on the interwebs.

So, in a need to keep my site up to date, here are some new things about me.

I'm going to be back at Marvel again this summer, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, starting June 1st. Should be exciting stuff! I'll be working in the X-Offices as an editorial intern, so I am INCREDIBLY EXCITED! This also means that I'll be spending the entire summer with my bestest bud Zack Rosenberg, and I'll have to spend ALL of my spare time reading every X-Men comic in the last 6 months to catch myself up. So, it should be a very busy summer.

OH! I also won an award! It seems like the good people of UConn have deemed me worthy of the Zachs Endowment Fund, which means that I am the proud recipient of a very decent sum of money to complete quite a heft art project over the next year. Here's a snippet of application essay to give you an idea of why I won:

"I intend to publish a comic entitled "Fifteen Things I Wish I Could Ask My Father", in which I will illustrate a conversation I have with my father wherein I ask him to honestly answer the most important questions I’ve wanted to ask him, but have never had the courage to. In addition to this comic, I will be creating sets of hand-held action-figures that depict my father in various stages of appearing as a hero to me, and will show how I’ve seen him in different lights over the last few years of my life,. This way of representing both him and my view of our relationship will serve as a direct reference to the outright and constant idolization of my childhood fantasy heroes. Finally, I will be creating a fully interactive life-size action-figure of my father, using sculptural casting techniques I’ve learned in the academic setting. As a child I wanted nothing more than to have life size Spider-Man or Power Ranger action-figures for me to play alongside of, and not just with. Creating a life size action figure of my father, the most influential and important real person in my life, will be an incredible realization of a childhood dream, and would communicate the depth of my feelings to an audience in a contemporary and meaningful way."

There's a lot more emotional crap behind it all, but this gives you a good idea of where things are going, both for this project and my arts career in general. It should be both exciting a daunting, as I hope to get the entire book completed by the end of the summer. I'm really nervous, probably more nervous than excited, and I think it'll only get worse with time. Either way, I'm happy that I can do this, and I think even happier that apparently someone thinks my art is worth supporting in a serious way. I suppose it's been a long time coming, but I guess I finally feel like I'm becoming an actual artist.

W A S T I N G _ T I M E _ A N I M A T I N G

Hello All,

Well, it's been quite awhile since I've been here to talk to you fine folks, schools been busy, and I'll probably put up some photos of all my final projects from the last semester soon for you folks to take a look at. But, for the time being, you'll have to settle for stills of my upcoming animation!

Yes, I'm taking an experimental animation class as a 3 week intensive may term class. It's the last week now, so here are some stills from the stop motion movie I'm making to wet your appetites before I get the final film up and running. I don't really have much more to say, other than I'm using some tracing paper, masking tape and paper dolls as some mixed media stuff. So here they are!

S O M E T H I N G _ C O M P L E T E L Y _ D I F F E R E N T _ [s o r t - o f]

Hey, just some fooling around in my sketch book, then a little photoshop mess-ings.

B A C K _ T O _ T H E _ G R I N D

Howdy all. I know it certainly has been quite a long time, but I have finally returned to your shinning faces once again, to display my work for my adoring fans. Even with a lot of personal drama going on right now, it's good to be back.

The short end of it is that school has to happening, so art is happening. So I'm here to display said art, and this is just the tip of the iceberg for the semester! With advanced printmaking and advanced drawing this semester, I'm bound to be a busy beaver for the rest of the year, and hopefully between pumping out masterpieces week after week, I'll be able to post everything. But, only time will tell.

These are just some simple sketches for printmaking. Please enjoy.

left to right: "Leonard", "Jerome", "Lou"