fire it up

Do you remember watching the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine called her boyfriend, Puddy, who was sitting on the couch in his apartment when she called. She asked him, "Whatch'a doin'?" Puddy repiled, "Nothing." "Nothing?" inquired Elaine. "You mean nothing? You're just sitting there, staring?" "That's right." deadpanned Puddy.

I can relate. Working on a painting or a series of paintings is preceded by seemingly dull stretches of nothing. Creative strikes don't happen without calms before the storm and I enjoy those times.

I'm not in the middle of nothing right now, but today's weather lends itself to wanting to do that. Gray and cool, fall is just around the corner. This time of year is great for me. Cooler weather always gives me extra drive to work. The last two weeks have been overly distracting. All good distractions, mind you. But I'm happy to move into the autumnal season, it gets my blood pumping. In my current series of work, number four of six is almost finished. It's looking really good and I should be done with it by next week. Here's a detail of number four below.

Here's a short quick video of me working on #4.

So, the Mexican orphanage trip is off.

The organizer of the trip emailed everyone to inform that, due to lack of resources, he finds it necessary to cancel this year's trip. I am bummed. I'd still like to finish the ideas I had for this project, just in case a similar opportunity comes up down the road. I like the idea of teaching kids to paint their own portraits. I think it would have an interesting impact on how they see themselves.



I got a haircut a few weeks ago, paid $22, including tip. I'm paying more these days for a cut and I leave the shop with less of myself. I suppose there's a hair disposal fee included in there somewhere, sort of like having your oil changed. I've realized that I function better with my hair longer. After the cut, I found myself bumping into walls and mistaking my dog for a large box of smoked salmon. My desire to paint was also weakened. Fear not, my hair is beginning to regain it's length and the curl is returning. This week was very productive, despite Delilah's temptations.




Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn,

Dave

children and drunks

Well, some week.

If you're not aware, I manage the breakfast shift, 5:30 am - 10:30 am, Monday - Friday at the restaurant Prima in the Hotel Teatro in downtown Denver. I'm home by 11:00 am and I paint from about 12:30 pm -4:00 pm each weekday. This week, I didn't get any painting done of course. I smeared paint around the board for about an hour on Monday, but beyond that, the last five days were all about Obama.


Fifty thousand.

The city was fifty thousand people busier than usual. At the hotel, the guest list included: various Kennedy's, Howard Dean and staff, governors, senators, millionaires & billionaires, members of congress, Italian consulate members, ambassadors from Barbados, occasional prime ministers, along with common Joes and Josephines, and lots of All-Americans wearing dark suits, sunglasses, and earpieces. Muhammad Ali and his family had rooms as well, though I didn't see the champ.

Denver SWAT officers sipped starbucks* on their way to the Pepsi Center each morning. Gaggles of twenty-somethings wearing issue promoting t-shirts moved through the city in a continual flow, followed by members of L. A. A. A. E. (League-of-Americans-Angry-About-Everything) and, of course, members of the press. Lots of press.

It was the most eclectic gathering of people I've been a part of. Highly inspiring and very optimistic.

In addition to it being Obama week in Denver, it was also, unofficially, bicycle week. Thousands of bicycles were available to borrow for free all over down town which helped out-of-towners and locals navigate the packed streets. Streets in the downtown area were essentially pedestrian malls with only the brave, the stupid, or the police escorted traveling by combustion engine.

There is a billboard in my neighborhood with a picture of Martin Luther King and the words "Martin Luther King was a Republican", sponsored by the Black Republican League. True enough, however, on my way home today, I saw that someone had very neatly covered up the word "Republi" with "Obama". Now the sign reads: "Martin Luther King was a Obamacan". Pity the soul who believes that any signage promoting the merits of being Republican will stand for long in our neighborhood. Truly, I haven't seen a single McCain sign in nearly 100 square blocks of our house.

Access to the Pepsi Center was exclusive. The one entrance that I witnessed from my bike was at least two blocks from the Pepsi Center itself. Bicycles aren't even allowed inside the convention grounds.

In the weeks and days leading up to the convention, somehow receiving credentials to attend the convention held at the Pepsi Center, was a dreamers game. The first in line to obtain passes to the show were, naturally, delegates and the well connected. The snarl of road closures, detours, and protesters was enough to keep most people from even traveling anywhere near downtown.

Obtaining official credentials to Obama's Thursday night speech at Mile High was considered impossible by any standard. After 50,000 passes were distributed to the delegates, VIPs and politiks, 35,000 passes were made available to the general public. To have a chance at receiving passes, it was required to submit an online application requesting the credential, and it was first come first served. Over 100,000 people requested passes.

Sharon and I received emails informing us that due to the overwhelming number of requests, we had been placed on a waiting list and would be informed if anyone should give up their passes. To expect someone to give up their passes would have required a powerful amount of imagination and we were both tired this week. So, we resigned our selves to watch the politics on tv.

However,

...luck favors children and drunks. We must fall somewhere in between.

As I mentioned above, I work weekday mornings at a very nice hotel. In the hotel is a very nice woman who is one of the concierges. Within the community of hotel concierges, professional favors flow like milk and honey. The nicer the hotel, the creamier the milk and sweeter the honey. The Hotel Teatro happens to be a four star hotel, so Creamy Milk and Sweet Honey floweth.

On Wednesday morning, my friend the concierge spoke to me in hushed tones about possibly obtaining a limited number of credentials for the convention on Wednesday night and asked if I'd be interested in attending. Eagerly, yet discreetly, I said yes. The problem was that the passes were located three blocks away at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and she would not have an opportunity to collect the passes herself. That's where I and my downtown cycling skills became invaluable. In return for my acting as messenger and courier, I was to receive two passes to the convention on Wednesday night. Home run.

Sharon and I attended the convention that night. As we walked to the convention hall and navigated through security, Sharon made the comment that she felt like a tourist in our own town, which was true. We were wide eyed and excited and inspired. Being as close as we were to such passionate people and actively participating in the democratic process, albeit as observers behind the stage, provoked unexpected emotions for me and was thoroughly engaging. We watched the delegates on the floor dancing and clapping. I was awestruck to see the state signs indicating the representatives from each state. I'd seen these tall signs on tv during past conventions and it is such and iconic image to me that it felt as if I were inside a moving photograph of conventions past. It was hard to believe I was actually there. Among other speakers, including Madeline Albright, we were honored to listen to President Clinton give his perfect endorsement of Senator Obama. President Clinton is one of the most powerful speakers I've had the chance to listen to. His voice and perspective gave me a powerful sense of purpose to my own insights. Listen here.

It had been a long week, so Sharon and I left right after the President's speech. The next morning's a.m. alarm would come all to soon. We fell asleep quickly, amazed at our fortunate evening.


Lucky strike 2.

Thursday morning, the day began with fervor. Obama was in town and everyone knew it. All minds were busy biding time until the doors at Mile High opened. Business at the restaurant never ended. My usual departure time of 10:30 am extended to 4:30 pm. In the late afternoon, I walked in to the upstairs office. My friend the concierge was there. She saw me and her eyes widened. "Dave!" she whispered urgently and walked to me. She showed me an envelope and then opened it. Inside were at least a dozen credentials for the Mile High speech that night. "You got some?!" I said. "They just came in!" she said, not offering to elaborating further on where they came in from. "So you're going tonight!" I congratulated. "Yep, me, my husband, and our daughter." "That is so great!" I continued. My friend the concierge pulled two passes out of the envelope and asked, "Do you want to go?" She handed the passes to me.

As I took the credentials, somewhere above me I began to hear music. Soft at first, then louder. The office disappeared slowly from my world and soon I found myself standing on a London street wearing little boys nickers, a tweedy brown coat over a wrinkled dirty buttoned down high collard white shirt, and a proper, if not nappy, stingy-brim hat just like Charlie worn in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. In fact, I was Charlie! And I'd just found the last Golden Ticket! Two Golden Tickets even! In my heavy black schoolboy shoes, I began to skip down the cobblestone street, in the morning sunshine as the music from above rang louder in my ears and I began to sing, in a perfect cockney accent! "I've got a Golden Ticket! I've got a Golden Ticket! They said it couldn't be done! Couldn't be done! But good morning! Look at the sun, it's bright and gay! 'Cause I've got a Golden Ticket and with a Golden Ticket its a golden day!" Joy.

Gratefully, this musical experience was an inner monologue that remained private from my co-workers standing around me in the office. Regardless, the nearly impossible had been granted to me and I thanked my friend the concierge enthusiastically and ran-walked out of the office to call Sharon.


I've never experienced a night like last night.

We rode our bikes from our house to within a mile of the stadium. Beyond that it would have been more trouble than it was worth to manage our bike among the thousands of people moving down the streets. We locked up the bikes and joined the parade. Hundreds of police lined the way, smiling and directing. Free bottles of water were available every hundred feet or so. We walked along Federal Avenue, now closed off from traffic. Peddlers sold t shirts, buttons, hats, posters. No one really knew exactly if we were heading in the right direction, but the officers waved us on. At one point, we left the sidewalk and followed the crowd down the side of an embankment. It was dirty and dusty and a bit precarious for some of the elderly. Sharon noted, with a laugh, that it felt like we were sneaking across the southern boarder. It did feel like that for a bit. Finally we returned to the sidewalks and snaked back into the vast parking lot surrounding the stadium.

Another fifteen minutes in the snaking line led us to the security tent. We were screened, airport style, and then continued on to the stadium. We had no idea where our seats would be. With our credentials, we had numbers that indicated where our seats would be. We were directed to the club level. If you're not familiar with what club level is, it's a good thing. As we walked towards our seating area, Stevie Wonder sang on the stage below. Ultimately, we had unbelievable seats. We sat on the isle at the very top of our section and had a perfect, unobstructed view of the stage. As it turned out, Hillary Clinton sat about 30 feet away from us, in the glassed-off seating area above our row.

We heard Al Gore speak: excellent, intelligent, funny. Music played, flags waved, everyone clapped and stomped. We participated in the most successful wave that has ever been
executed in any football arena. The wave traveled around the stadium nine times. Nine times.

At one point, non-famous folks took turns standing on the stage and told their personal stories and why they were voting for Obama. Undoubtedly for me, the most memorable of these was a man named Barney Smith. Barney had lost his job after 31 years and his position had been relocated to workers in another country. Barney gave us the best laugh of the night with his quotable line, "We need a president that puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney!" Thunderous applause rewarded Barney's folksy insight and 85,000 people began to chant his name. "Barney! Barney! Barney! Barney! Barney!"

Just after eight o'clock, Senator Richard Durbin introduced a short film about Obama. As the film ended to applause, Senator Obama walked onto the stage bringing the house to it's feet and roaring applause from the rafters. His speech was everything it should have been, inspiring us to believe in what our country should and can be. He spoke with respect and reverence in regard to Senator McCain. He gave me the pragmatic reasons that I wanted to justify my supporting his presidency, and he gave me the inspirational vision that I must have to be influenced. But the idea that had the most impact on me was his insistence that "We are our brother's keeper, We are our sister's keeper". This is the ideological and moral foundation that motivates Senator Obama. I was moved, and I was reinforced in my decision to help elect this man as our president. If you didn't get a chance to watch his speech, listen to him speak. Listen hopefully and without bias and see if you agree with his intent and his ideas.

I was a part of something last night that I've hoped for, for as long as I can remember. Sharon and I were blessed to experience our country's continuing miracle of democracy and to share our never ending hope for human dignity and opportunity. It was just the best night.




Everybody have a good weekend, and Godspeed, Barney Smith,

Dave

timing and miles

A good man I work with shared a couple of pictures of his daughter with me. Her name is Aya. She looks just like her daddy.

The Beijing Olympics open today, 08.08.2008, at 8.08.08 pm Beijing time. Which means that as I write this, at 7:51 am mountain time, the janitors are sweeping up yesterday's confetti. The eights are by no chance a coincidence - in Chinese folklore, the number 8 stands for prosperity, fortune and wealth.

No doubt China's presentation of itself to the world will be dramatic and beautiful, if we can see it through the smog. These Olympics will be sort of like watching Dorian Grey at a dinner party.

Never the less, I love the Olympics. Tune in and cheer for everyone.

Sharon, Matt, and I have all applied to receive tickets, or "community credentials" to attend Obama's speech at Mile High on Friday, 30th. According to reports, 30 thousand tickets were made available strictly for Colorado residents. Over 60 thousand of us applied. So, we'll see the action live or maybe we'll cheer from our sofa. Either way, how grand.

NASA just had it's 50th anniversary a week ago. One of the first space crafts that NASA built was called the NASA M2-F1. It was designed to test the ability to land an aircraft horizontally after atmospheric reentry. I imagine this was key to the future space shuttle landings. A cowboy named Milt Thompson piloted the craft for the first time on April 5th, 1963, 18 years to the week, that the first shuttle, Columbia, lifted off on April 12, 1981. All combined, the five shuttles have flown over 450 million miles. Space-science is an addictive subject for me. Bring on the star cruisers.

A different kind of Miles.

The Miles Davis Quintet was a bebop-oriented jazz quintet formed in 1955 by Miles Davis. John Coltrane played tenor sax, Red Garland waxed piano, Paul Chambers stood on double-bass, Phill Joe Jones on drums, and Miles on trumpet. These guys are mythic in the genre today, but at the time of the Quintet's formation, they were virtually unknown.

Davis had just kicked his heroin addiction in early 1955 when he performed such a strong version of Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, that Columbia Records signed Davis to a recording contract, which allowed him to assemble a working band.

"'Round midnight" is a song that moves like smoke. I have listened to this song so many times and I'm always laid down and swept away. When Miles exhales, I crave whiskey on ice and I want to loosen my tie and slow dance with my wife in the living room.

If you've never listened to Davis, listen and watch him below with his band, including Coltrane on sax, playing "'Round Midnight". I suggest you wait 'till you're at home with your shoes off before you press play. Pour yourself a drink and let the sound pull you into the night. Enjoy.

Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn,

Dave

thieves and irony

I had some great stuff to share today, but instead I'll tell a different story.

On Wednesday, my mountain bike was stolen from me. It was cable locked to the patio outside the restaurant that I work at each morning during the week. The bike was a gift from Sharon and I'd had it for about a year. I rode it on trails in Winter Park and over some supremely wicked slickrock just outside of Moab. It was a great bike.

Today I borrowed Sharon's mountain bike to get to work. I stored her bike inside the restaurant, downstairs in a stairwell, just a ways from where the pastry chefs work. After work, I rode Sharon's bike over to the Denver police department to file a report on my bike. I locked Sharon's bike to the bike rack outside the department and went inside to fill out the paper work. When I came back outside, less than twenty minutes later, Sharon's bike was gone. Irony.

I'm home now, looking for the serial number for her bike so I can go and make another report.

Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn,

Dave

startling stories

The prime job of artists or any creative person is to observe and comment. New ideas come from the observing, then new ideas are realized and shown through completed work, i.e. music, dance, painting, writing, etc. Hopefully the work either challenges or inspires whoever comes into contact with it, beginning another process of observation and comment.

Our brother Ben is a creative type. He wrote me this week asking if I "... ever felt weird when you give your pieces to your clients. Weird in a sad or a little depressed kind of way. Like you just lost something. I feel attached to the things I'm doing."

I responded:

"I haven't grown attached to any commissioned work yet. I think this is because I don't have any emotion invested in the subjects. Now, the non-commissioned work, any personal work I do that is created as a result of inspiration or some other gut feeling, will be another matter. These works are personally valuable to me because from beginning to end, I was responsible for bringing them into the world. My personality and values are part of each work, so the thought of letting these pieces go does make me a little nervous because I want them to be respected and treated well.

I document my work as I go, so I have a chance to see how my work changes over time, and I never let a piece leave without having photographed it for the portfolio.

I haven't sold any private work yet. When I do, I suspect that there will be a little postpartum depression that sets in for a short time. But, having other people acquire my work is the whole point for me. Unless my paintings move around in the world they just get dusty. Outside, they become dynamic and out of my control and that turns me on. I put my best into each piece and then let them effect as they will. Simple themes and subjects will evoke emotions and thoughts that I never intended, and I really like that idea."



Here is some artwork that I love. Enjoy.






















Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn,

Dave

drippin' pitch, and made of wood

If you enjoy good news, then congratulations to our friends Angie and John. They gave birth their second son, David Asher, last Sunday.

If you enjoy satire, I recommend the movie, Thank you for Smoking. Funny and smart.

We played Scrabble last night and I won. I mention this because I rarely win. Sharon was a gracious in her defeat.



Continuing the discussion on school vouchers.

In the historical context, the discussion of the demise of public education is as old as Salisbury steak on Tuesdays.

Here are two links to get things started. How public schools are funded, a story from publicopinon.com. This speaks about the challenges of funding imbalances between schools as you move from district to district, and from Wikipedia on the school voucher system. Finding simple explanations of either, particularly on how the voucher system actually works and how the money is allocated is difficult. I'll keep studying and I'll keep an open mind.

My suggestion to pool the nation's education monies and having them evenly distributed among the nation's students was, naturally, a simple, if not idealistic foray into a complex issue. I didn't begin to offer how this could be done nor insist that it will be quick and easy. But I don't recall Yoda telling Luke that facing Vader would be convenient.

Increasing school budgets makes the resource strain lighter, but heaping more money into school bank accounts will not solve school troubles alone. I did not bring up points such as, accountability, parent involvement, high expectations, readiness to learn, quality conditions, or qualified staff. These elements, along with funding, are vital components needed to create excellent schools that provide excellent education opportunities. These are matters of society values and integrity.

And I don't care whether funding for public education is federal or local. That's irrelevant to me.

Another point I didn't mention is, though the opportunity for education lay before a student, it is ultimately the student's responsibility to succeed or not. No institution should indefinitely support a body who won't attempt to support itself. I do not endorse freedom without responsibility.


Concerning choice.

Choosing to send your child to another school is not wrong. Providing your child with the best advantages in life is good. But this choice only satisfies concerns that effect us individually. Our community isn't any better from this decision. Since we choose to live in a community, we must be accountable to the success of that community. Rather than looking only inward to what benefits me and mine, I'd prefer to grow a culture that continually reinvents and rebuilds itself and it's public institutions to meet the needs of it's people and at the same time, inspires it's people to pursue higher ideals and standards. The truth is, I will always choose my family's well being over others. But I would also encourage the belief within my family that we have not been given our lives and our good fortune to benefit only ourselves, but to serve and lift up the folks next door. Choice can enhance our lives for the better, but it sometimes gives us the opportunity to sidestep a problem instead of addressing it.

To paraphrase the Good-Book, concerning education: Give a child a sandwich and you've fed her for one meal. Teach her to combine savory lean corn beef, cool sour kraut, fresh Russian Rye, and a nice schmear of 1000 island, and you've taught her to sustain herself daily with a Ruben sandwich.


I live a luxurious life. I have at least 6 pairs of shoes to choose from each day. After nearly ten years of ownership, one pair, an excellent duo of black leather dress shoes, began to wear out it's sole. I kept the shoes for months, even after the soles actually began to separate from the upper. After considering for over a year whether to send my shoes to the farm, I decided to take another route. On Wednesday, I gathered my beaten shoes together and took them to be repaired.

Downtown, between 16th and 15th, on Larimer Street, is a shoe cobbler. I looked for elves as I entered the shop and then remembered it was too early for their shift. I pulled my shoes out of my backpack and introduced them to the man behind the counter. It would cost $50 to have the soles replaced and the shoes would be ready for pickup the next day around lunchtime. I thanked him and left, leaving my shoes to be rebuilt.

The next day, I returned to the cobbler to pick up my shoes. Good as new and even better. Buying a new pair of shoes would have cost me time at the store and $100. Instead, I chose to take the time and care to have my worn shoes repaired, restoring them to their former beauty and usefulness. I'm glad I didn't give up on something that had served me faithfully.

I'm not willing to discard public schools either, and I am willing to share my good fortune and time to help reinvent our schools into places of inspiration and power. Public schools did not fail me or my family. Most of our grandparents didn't have any choice as to where they were educated. Did their generation fail in life? Public schools are worth the trouble of rebuilding and reinventing, even at the cost of lots of shoe leather.





Ode to my black shoes.


Dust gives you the look
of forgotten baked bread on a rack
covered in flour.
Your toes protected mine
at the expense of your own.
Balance has slipped away,
smooth gate is thrown
out of your reach.
Cracked sophistication,
the go-to shoe has gone off the deep end.
Best dressed for the garbage,
the elegance makes fond memories.
Carried from the cupboard, dark
down the hill without fanfare
into rough hands, left behind.
Bent, lifeless and stabbed
again, again, again, and again.
What's comes of this invasion, this violence?

Spinning wheel, vapor, resin
painful
and invigorating.
Amnesia moves aside, recollection
opens the door.
Balance reintroduces itself.
Is that light? Restored? Whole?
Strong form! Tango guitars chorus!
Grand seams, welcome back!
Hammer for heels, pound again!
Traction injects itself, solid shape and duty
bloom and call back your sense of purpose!
Smooth leather, like licorice shines!
Dignity calls again like a long lost friend
and sweeps you up to show your triumph
over apathy!

Faithful couple of midnight travelers,
never tiring despite your passengers complaints.
Your sole has been restored
and the journey continues.


Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn,

Dave

there and back again

This was a pretty productive week. I finished a painting and prepared a new board for the next one. Done, done, onto the next one.

We spent the week before Independence Day riding a train and then backpacking, camping, and mountain climbing with goats for three days and nights in the Chicago Basin. Splendid adventure. My favorite thing about backpacking, is the lack of choice. I encourage everyone to spend some time doing without. It clears your head and restates the difference between need and want. It also gives you renewed appreciation for indoor toilets. If you'd like to see some pictures of the trip, click here.

The Fourth of July, we spent in Durango, quaffing chilled French red wine with our escargot and lamb chops. After dinner, we watched the fireworks on Main Street. We spent the rest of the evening with two gentlemen that had been on the train with us and had also spent three days and nights camping. Jim, who is a retired photographer and Bill, who is a train engineer were both from Winslow, Arizona. They invited us back into the restaurant we had just dined at to drink some wine with them on their tab, of course we could not refuse. Three hours later, we closed down the bar with them. But, not before the chef and owner, Jean-Pierre, had come out and introduced himself to us and entertained us with a bit of piano playing on the baby grand that sat in the middle of the room. When he finished playing, I kissed his hand. Sharon reminds me that this would be the second time, while on a journey, that we've closed down a bar with perfect strangers and lots of wine and which the night ended with me kissing the chef.

Sharon was in Sacramento all this week. She and several of her fellow staffers were sent there to withstand 106 degree heat and be educated about the Avid learning program. Avid is a program that emphasizes the encouraging of students, who come from families where neither parent has a college education, to pursue a college career. Sharon's plane lands in Denver at midnight. Gratefully, a colleague traveling with Sharon offered to drive her home, as she lives near our neighborhood, not that I minded picking her up, of course. I'm ready for her to be home.

T. Boone Pickens, remember that name. If you're from Texas, you're probably already familiar with it, either fondly or with disgust. Regardless of your opinion of his politics and personal philosophies, Mr. Pickens, is a vocal advocate for wind power as one means to begin relieving ourselves from oil dependence. Ironic, as Mr. Pickens made his billions harvesting the black stuff. Of course Mr. P stands to make barrels of money from catching the wind, but that's fine. Revolutionizing a nation's practices, sometimes necessitates a brutish blow-hard to push it into reality. I support the Pickens Plan. I don't imagine there would be a need to send folks to death's door to keep our wind supplies secured

On the subject of school vouchers.

To my knowledge, our public schools receive federal tax dollars, in addition to being financed by property taxes from their respective communities. Because all communities are not considered of equal value, each community produces different amounts of funding for their local schools. Communities with low property value produce less revenue for their schools, communities with high property value produce more revenue for their schools. As a result, "Michael", who attends school in Richville, has $8000 spent on his behalf each school year, while "Jose", who attends school in Poorburg, has $4000 spent on his behalf each school year. Unless the cost of everything in Poorburg is half of what it is in Richville, Jose's getting screwed.

There are pros and cons to allowing for school vouchers. I can see both sides of the argument, but I believe until the uneven manner in which public education is funded becomes balanced, I stand against the idea of school vouchers.

In the restaurant business, there is a practice called pooling. This is where servers agree to pool, or combine, all the tips that each server makes during that shift. At the end of the shift, the tip pool is divided evenly among the servers. The purpose of this practice is not to take money away from hard workers or to make it easy for a lazy worker to receive payment at the expense of other peoples work. The purpose is to promote teamwork. When each server is dependent on the success of the next, it is in the best interest of everyone involved that everyone have the most successful shift possible. This system works.

My suggestion is this: Pool the funding for public schools throughout the country and divide it evenly among the nations students. Am I naive? Where would this money come from? I'm an artist, by trade. Take it from the National Endowment for the arts. Better yet, lets be more responsible with our military spending and permanently redirect monies to build students instead of brigades. I'm willing to sacrifice resources in one area of my government's budget, to protect and better our educational institutions.

When the subject is education, there must be no imbalance in resource and opportunity. Education can not involve children having to compete for money to pay for books or teachers having to pay for supplies out of their own pockets. Educating children is about equipping, not competing. Once children are equipped, they'll have a lifetime to compete to their hearts content.

I would not begrudge a parent the option of choosing where their children are educated and I expect the highest levels of education to be provided by our public schools through dedicated, earnest, well compensated teachers. But children have no say in their circumstances and it is high-rot that any should have their education's quality determined by their parents zip code. If there is concern about having to help subsidize another parent's child when you already work hard enough to feed your own, understand that the other parent's child is your child as well. If she fails in life, so do we all.

Please send advice and/or hate mail to dp@davependleton.com.

Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn,

Dave

gallery

Below are paintings from 2006 - 2007. All works are acrylic on board. I have nine new works, that were completed during 2008 to present, that will be posted once they have been photographed and cataloged.

If you are interested in commissioning a portrait, please email me at: dp@davependleton.com.     I would love to talk with you and answer any questions you have.

Thanks! Have a great day,

Dave Pendleton

Watching $2000 acrylic 48" x 32"

   Fro $1500       acrylic 48" x 32"

Martin & Zanna $2000 acrylic 48" x 32"

Rick $1000     acrylic 48" x 32"

Moe $500 acrylic 48" x 32"

Jackson & Sophie   sold $1300   48" x 32"

Taylor   sold $800   acrylic    20" x 20"

Rick Sherif $1000 acrylic 48" x 32"

keep your head about you

I'm going to use this blog as an extension of my website. My website is a free site that my web host provides as part of my service. In it's free version, it has limited capacity, which is why I only have three paintings available to view. For a few dollars more, I'll be able to increase the number of pages on the site as well as have photo gallery options. At this point I'll be able to post the rest of my work. I hope to have the rest of my work available to view here by next week.

Regarding the Juarez kids, I'm going to encourage them to paint their portraits in black and white. I'm not going to encourage any particular style of painting. I'm a realist painter but I don't intend to push that style. I think I'll show them examples of portraits by different painters from different disciplines: abstract, impressionistic, cubist, maybe stipple. I'm thinking black mediums on different colored backgrounds.

I haven't settled on exactly how I'm gonna' have the kids view themselves while they paint their own faces. Mirrors are an option. I could have them paint from a picture of themselves. That would entail shooting their portraits as soon as I got there and having a printer ready to print the photographs. I'm not sure what the orphanage has in the way of equipment. I might need to invest in a portable printer. I like this idea, the pictures could possibly make for good portraits of my own to paint once I'm back home.


Our brother Matt, has recommended a new band to add to our summer soundtrack, Fleet Foxes. They're a bit Beach Boys, a bit My Morning Jacket, and a touch of 60's Celtic-folk rock. The music is strange and beautiful. The band hales from Seattle, and their first album is great listening on summer evenings when you crave tight harmonies to go with your Beaujolais and Comte.


I'm voting for Obama. I'll speak more about why he's my guy down the road. I bring this up, because I received an email from a friend the other day. The email contained a short video from the website, The Urban Grind: Current events, politics and life in general from the perspective of a conservative woman in Manhattan. Bland title, if not overly specific.

It was decidedly anti-Obama in it's message. After I watched all 13 minutes of it, I just laughed. The video was the sort of media that's all over the web, and was made to scare people that are easily scared. It contained pictures of angry black people, Reverend Wright, as one example, screaming about the evil white conspiracy. It showed video of Obama not placing his hand over his heart during a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and not wearing American flag pins, juxtaposed with grainy pictures of decapitated heads and militant jihad warriors.The narrator insinuates the possibility that Mr. Obama is a proponent of radical Muslim doctrine because part of his name sounds Muslim, a theory that sounds very similar to the much ignored theory that Colonel Sanders was a vicious military leader intent on decimating the healthy blood pressure levels of every man, women and child with vast armies of over-salted chickens. Baloney. It's the type of video that captures attention by stirring the fear pot.

Friends and family: Don't place your trust in unnamed, anonymous stories from paranoid conspiracy theory websites, either liberal or conservative. Please get your news from reputable news sources that take credit for the information they put forward. And don't just follow one news source, watch the news and read the paper, compare and contrast. The truth is out there, but I assure you, it ain't found in obscure rants on the web.

Let's all agree to seek the truth, and leave fear on the side. Although, this show of integrity and common sense might be construed as witch craft which might lead to us being burned in the public square.

" We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time."

Jack Kerouac


This weekend I'll be thinking of my Dad. He is a good man and I love him. My dad's a funny guy, too. Here's something to make him laugh. Happy Father's day, Dad.


Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn

Dave

new project

I had a meeting Sunday evening with a group of people, who are traveling to Juarez, Mexico, to teach art to children living in a local orphanage. The orphanage, Arbol de Vida (Tree of Life), is home to around 100 children, ages roughly 5 to 18. I've been invited to go with this group and spend two days working with these kids to create artwork that we will bring back to the States to be sold at an art auction with the proceeds going back to help the orphanage. It's a fantastic idea and I'm excited to be a part of it. There will be four other artists besides myself.

Each of us will be responsible for creating a different art project and for instructing the children through our respective projects. Since my specialty is painting faces, I've decided that self portraits will be my project. I've got a lot of work ahead of me. The trip will take place October 9th -12th. We'll be driving from Denver the morning of the 9th, arriving at Juarez that afternoon. There will be eight of us traveling together in a 15 passenger van with the trip taking about twelve hours, door-to-door . We'll spend two days working with the kids and then return home with the children's artwork on Sunday the 12th. The art auction will be sometime in mid-November.

There's a lot of history being made this year. Some of it will happen here in Denver this summer with the Democratic National Convention ascending to the Mile High Metropolis. As of late, your choices are now more specific, Obama vs McCaine. Although Ron Paul for the Libertarians may still be holding pot-lucks, and of course perennial Ralph Nader is with us, slingshot in hand.

I love presidential elections, it's the best feature of our government. It's sort of like a shaking of the national etch-e-sketch. Don't like the picture? Shake it up! Let someone else turn the knobs for a while and see what happens. We live in a great ongoing experiment that demands our participation. Of course we can't all devote huge chunks of our time and money to shaping the political landscape, but we can inform ourselves, we can talk about important issues with our families, through letters and emails, we can advise and encourage our representatives and congress people, we can volunteer a little of our time and money to supporting and encouraging good people to govern our country, we can vote. Opting out and displaying boredom and apathy signal lazy and self centered thinking. Don't let apathy be your legacy. We need to be thinking beyond our own lifetimes. How should our country conduct itself today, so that 100 years from now, people can ponder the same question. If you love your kids, educate yourself and vote.

Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glen

Dave