Streetscapes of the MIDWEST

I've been in Iowa (and just over the Mississippi to Illinois) digging at my roots. I found some good smalltown streetscapes along the way.


Nauvoo, Illinois

Ladora, Iowa

Grinnell, Iowa

(Louis Sullivan bank at far right)

Louis Sullivan Bank in Grinnell, 1999
for Julie and the 10year Anniversary of our Cross-Country USA Road Trip.

Monumental Ideas in Miniature Book Making

On my way out of town, I caught this show at SCAD's Alexander Hall. Great work - and Inspiration for This is Savannah Vol. 2.

Find more images here.

Erik Desmazières

Passages Parisiens

I celebrated my birthday with Erik Desmazieres, and some of my very good friends in Savannah. Okay, Erik did not drop in from Paris and blow out candles, but we did very much enjoy seeing him walk about his city, Paris, inspired by its expressive architecture, make drawings, and painstakingly transform the drawings into etchings, in the film Les Paris d'Erik at the Telfair Museum's Jepson Center for the Arts. We were in on the whole fascinating lithographic process through his eyes, with his printer Rene Taze. Aquatint, roulette, open bite...I'm not sure I understand it all but my respect for the art of making a lithograph is escalated. The minute and meticulous cross-hatching of the plate creates contrast, depth and texture beyond the limits of graphite or paint. Lithography is such a real, tactile process that really engages the eye, mind, and hand - then produces a print by a rustic-looking contraption of rollers and wheels. It seems like a hybrid of drawing (though on metal) and the making of photographic prints.

The exhibit is his first solo in the USA and runs until October. I am drawn to the imaginary architectural worlds Desmazieres creates. The same qualities of arcitectural magnitude and whimsical detail are inherent in the wonderful rooms as well as the cityscapes. I can throw myself into these images, these real and imaginary places, and explore them at a dizzying variety of scales. The cities conjure images of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. Studio Louis Icart, 1980Atelier Rene TazeImaginary City II, 1999

Salle Bibliotque Nationale, 2001

10 BLOCK East Jones Street

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10 BLOCK East Jones Street_Raw Material

Fresh from the late-night drawing board, I've just finished the 10 Block of East Jones Street. Now, to scan and stitch.

I would like to take you to the Bamboo Farm

Rare Giant Timber Bamboo was growing on this farm outside of Savannah before 1918 when a planter-explorer named David Fairchild happened upon it. Since then, the farm has evolved to become an educational and research garden, first the Savannah Plant Introduction Station and now an outreach of the University of Georgia. Beyond the varieties of bamboo, there are floral gardens, strawberries, blackberries, bananas, sugar cane, and prickly pears grown here.
Here is the Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens, Savannah Georgia:

Orders FulFilled.

I made a bunch of stuff (books, note cards, postcards, and prints) over the past week. Off it goes, now, to shopSCAD and to Ft. Alafia Country Store in Plant City, Florida.