2022-11-09
2022-08-19
ESSAY: Economic Treason
A Treatise on Our Current Economic Circumstances
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| An Act Concerning the Breach of Public Trust by Managers of Monies and Resources Who have Taken, Used and Spent so as to Personally Profit from the Resources of Share Owners and Citizens. |
> The premise is simple. When certain individuals or parties conduct themselves in such a way as to jeopardize the economic and social well being of the community, and have done so while personally benefitting simultaneous to the detriment of those who have entrusted them with proper management of certain resources, they have "endangered the life of the polity", and, as a result, may have committed Economic Treason.
> Include that they be held accountable for their actions, and be required to repay society for the effects and impacts of their actions accordingly.
> When decision makers, representatives of the polity, if you will, engage to assist those who violate the sacred trust, they too, must be held accountable. But here we must also address what the legal definitions of involvement may be.
> There are precedents in history, however unsavory, for the punishment of such crimes were to meted out against the transgressors.
> We don't have to follow these methods if they do not seem fit. Perhaps the penalty of Death is not sufficient deterrent. For some, forced remediation and reimbursement for the crimes they committed shall be, for the remained of their lives, would be a far more brutal, yet, fitting, retribution.
> Even, possibly, allowing the perpetrators appear to go free, but to be permanently banned from holding any professional titles, licenses, certifications or authority; forbidden to vote - much less engaged in the public decision-making process; obligated to maintain a very public address without interventions or protections. Let forces take their own course. They shall have to deal with their adversaries unprotected.
THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET FORTH THE THE LAWS AS RELATED TO CRIMES OF ECONOMIC TREASON SHALL BE RETROACTIVE TO THE YEAR 1980. THEY SHALL BECOME EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY AND SHALL NOT BE SUBJECT TO ANY KIND OF STATUES OF LIMITATIONS.
First penned in 1991, First Public showing: August 1991, Connecticut Legislative Office Building Complex
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2022-08-18
2022-08-14
ink/watercolor: "Now I Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds"
In memory of the combined bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
J Robert Oppenheimer ~ regarded by many as one of the "fathers" of the thermo-nuclear bomb, referring to Hindu scripture to acknowledge the immensity
and horror of the outcome of their efforts.
To have utterly decimated the populations of two cities full of civilians, even during an international conflict, the bombings were, in fact, a war crime . Official condemnation (i.e. exile, prison time, etcetera) never came for Oppenheimer or the others who developed, then deployed, these horrific weapons, their actions are recorded in history
Portraits: Frantz Fanon
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Frantz Fanon was a brilliant activist and philosopher. Born in Martinique, In the course of his work as a physician and psychiatrist, Fanon supported Algeria's War of independence from France and was a member of the Algerian National Liberation Front when the citizens of Algeria fought to wrest their nation free from French Rule. His books, "Black Skin, White Masks" and "The Wretched of the Earth" are major works of Anti-Racist and Anti-Colonial theory. Fanon has been described as "the most influential anticolonial thinker of his time. |
Watercolor: Leaving Belize 2
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"Leaving Belize" Watercolor/gouache on Arches paper (from a plein air study) |
Truths about Art
What one truth about being an artist would you share with a younger artist?
Plan carefully; Take risks and don’t stay in your comfort zone; Don’t expect the Muse to visit all the time, but keep working on something every day.
Color Pencil Study: The woods from Porges Road
This is an effort to make a scene I'm quite familiar with more abstract
Domestic Scenes: House portrait; pond painting
A client asked for a house portrait. Customarily, when doing a house portrait I interview the residents of the house to determine their interests and what unique things they would like in the completed image. In this instance they told me the location from which the house was to be painted.
Yet during an interview and a site visit it was evident that a key feature of the property, a koi pond, lovingly built over time by one of the couple, would not be clearly visible from the preferred vantage point. Additionally, on the site visit I could see that much of the family's outdoor entertaining and visiting was conducted from a deck overlook above the pond. It seemed certain that providing a portrait without the pond was as if one did a portrait of a couple with only one person in the picture.
So I elected to include, as part of the original agreed upon commission price, the pond.
The house was painted in acrylic 22"x28". For many reasons, this one was more of a challenge, from how to make the base of the pond look like more than a pile of rocks to angles and quirky add-ons and how to make them appear as a cohesive image. The personalization make the complete picture easier.
The koi pond is a watercolor. 12" x 16". This was, for me, a pleasure to paint. During the sketching phase, I observed a Chinese character for "Spring" on a stone plate. In interests of completeness, the other three seasons were added based, clock-wise, with the original siting of Spring.
Commissions are often a challenge. Sometimes the query isn't clear. But I learn from each of them.
2022-06-28
Acrylic: Mountain Range study
Some have asked why I don't work entirely on a single project before starting something else.
Simple - it may be that I'm working on color studies, or certain brush strokes, or perspective (or something else) in order to more suitably complete the other work.
That said, here's a quick landscape study.
2022-06-21
Keeseville - Gateway to the Adirondacks
This map was created on spec for a tourism plan for the village of Keeseville, NY. It never got used by the agency that asked for it, however it provides an example of an interpretive map project, combinging illustraion and text related to the village itself. The piece was eventually purchased and is now owned by a private collector who lives in Nrthern New York.
"History Lesson"
Identifying a handful of locations where Black people were massacred in the name of white supremacy. At least three sites were thriving Black communities that were destroyed; two (Tusla OK, and Ocoee FL) were by Ku Klux Klan members - one a direct assault intended to prevent black citizens from voting in 1920. The other (Seneca Village)m was destroyed by bureacuratic intervention/
Acrylic on wood panel in shadow box. 12"x20"/30.5x50 cm (c) 2021 Will Brady
Hunting Cabin - Whigville CT
Two versions of the same site, one a watercolor on paper; the other acrylic on canvas.
I tend to paint "dry"
2022-06-13
First Church, East Haddam CT - looking from Venture and Meg Smith's Gravesites
Venture Smith was a prominent member of the East Haddam and Haddam communities in the early 19th Century. Venture Smith was an African-American farmer and craftsman. Yet, except for his own accounts, there seems little to document his contributions to Haddam Neck and East Haddam. This painting of First Church, Congregational, is thus symbolic perhaps. His family burial area at the cemetery adjacent to the Church is prominent and overlooks to the sanctuary. In his early sixties, he was unjustly charged with the loss of a white man's property and charged for ten pounds while visiting New London. Although being absent from the scene with witnesses, he was still prosecuted. Smith then carried this matter to other courts, claiming his innocence, but the judgment was never reversed. This misleading judgment was made out of discrimination against Black people. Remembering this experience, he said: "Captain Hart was a white gentleman, and I a poor African, therefore it was all right, and good enough for the black dog.[9] " It would not be surprising, then, that even though he achieved financial success before he died, that - as an African man - the powers-that-be kept a certain social isolation between the white settlers and Smith. Just like the stone wall keeps the Smith family gravesites apart from the European area settlers. |
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Smith experienced multiple personal setbacks. He bought an enslaved Black man for 400 dollars. However, he wanted to return to his old enslaver, so Smith released him. Venture Smith purchased another enslaved Black man for 25 pounds. After his daughter, Hannah was married, she came down with an illness. However, her husband did not pay adequate attention to her health. Although Smith nursed her, she died. In 1775, Smith bought a farm at Haddam Neck, on the Salmon River, in Connecticut. By 1778 he had expanded the initial 10 acres to form a farm of at least 130 acres. Additionally, he made a living by fishing, whaling, farming his land, and trading in the Long Island basin. He lived the remainder of his life at Haddam Neck.[1] |
(Birth name: Broteer Furro) (c. 1729 – 1805)
Venture Smith (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_Smith
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