\
2023-03-04
2023-01-15
2022-11-09
2022-08-19
ESSAY: Economic Treason
A Treatise on Our Current Economic Circumstances
 |
| 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
.jpg)
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
 |
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
 |
"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. |
 |
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
2021-12-30
2021-12-12
2021-11-09
plein air : At the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, Lavore, TN
This Historic site, The Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, in Lavore, TN, is on a river that was dammed up in the 1960s, in order for the Tennesee Valley Authority to build a nucear power plant. The construction resulted in flooding lands where members of the Cherokee Nation had been living.
Naming the site after a local Native American Indian was considered a small political token to the Cherokee in compensation for the dam-flooding and destruction of their historic sites that TVA required to control flooding on the Tennessee River.
 |
| At the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, Lavore, TN ~ plein air watercolor (c) 2011 / Will Brady |
In a sense, the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum is also a monument to the "Second Trail of Tears" for the Cherokee Nation.
Acrylic painting ~ "Fully Involved"
"Fully Involved"
acrylic on canvas in frame.
Doing this was particularly intriguing - taking on a triple challenge of depicting water, fire and a night scene in the same piece.
(c) 2021 / Will Brady - in private collection
2021-10-20
2021-10-14
oil painting: Rose of Cairo
This is the Nile River delta. The colors are infrared colors so the large red section in the picture are actually agricultural fields.
 |
| oil on canvas board. |
2021-10-08
combine: "La Guerre des Anglais et Indiennes"
I was with friends recently who asked about if I'd completed any new combines, and I mentioned "La Guerre des Anglais et Indiennes" and they automatically reflex-stated "The French and Indian War".
So well incorporated is this war in the American psyche as the latter, the people fail to see that this is titled as the Canadians (the Quebecers, in particular) describe the war, which was about the exploitive English who made alliances with some of the Iroquois to fight the French and English colonists
2021-10-04
2021-10-02
September Watercolors
Pennsylvania Farmlands
Chrysler Building NYC
Moodus Res from MSC
Shady Acre, San Diego Area
2021-09-11
Remembering the World Trade Center
Remembering where I was:
I went to work on September 11 just returning from vacation.
At the time I was the senior patient advocate at a maximum-security forensic psychiatric hospital.
Typically, even when gone for the weekend there is always someone – usually two or three – who want to see me. I’d been away for over a week. Checking the voice mail, making note of those who’d asked to see me I expected I’d be busy all morning.
Once in the building while walking past the nurse supervisor’s office, some staff were inside talking about a plane crashing into the side of a building and how shocking this was. My guess was they were talking about a film on TV the night before. I gave it little thought. Given how many had called asking to speak with me I headed toward the units to make my rounds through the building.
The facility is constructed as a roundabout. Anyone going to one of the units quite literally passes through each one to get to the next.
During day hours there’s considerably more social and emotional distance between unit staff and the patients; interacting with some reserve except for when patients are attending groups or need fresh bedding, towels or some other items brought from storage. Yet that day things were different. Unusual for the hour (9 am) the nursing station on the unit was empty save for one person, and no one was in the hall.
Everyone had gathered in the two big common rooms. I could hear the TV’s on. There was virtually no conversation taking place. Even the clinicians (who usually didn’t interact with patient or direct line staff except in formal meetings) joined patients and staff filling the two TV rooms. I had to squeeze into one of the rooms to see what they were watching.
People acknowledged my presence, but everyone was focused on the screen. People who had called me said they’d speak to me later.
The north tower of the World Trade Center was on fire. Someone turned to me and said that an airplane had crashed into the tower, just like staff in the nurse supervisor’s office had said.
The second plane had yet to hit.
So I went on to the second unit. Same thing. Everyone crowded into the TV rooms. Everyone intermixed sitting and standing side by side. I don’t think I’d ever seen this before
Upon arrival on the third unit, the halls were empty. So was the nurse call station. The TV rooms were at the far end of the unit. Some were standing in the hall looking in.
As I came to the doorway of one of the rooms, I saw – as did everyone else – a second plane headed towards and witnessed it smash into the south tower.
Off unit activities for the morning were cancelled though people were permitted to go out into the courtyard.
The twin crashes of the towers brought everyone together in a muted unity. Any rancor that might usually have been reported remained unstated. All of us were stunned.
No one had anything to say.
2021-09-03
Distractions: Jigsaw Puzzling
I do jigsaw puzzles daily. About 20 minutes a day. As an exercise. On two different puzzle sites (I'll get to that):
The exercise helps focus on, and sharpen, observational skills needed when I make paintings, calligraphic style texts; or the Combine/Collages.
Some examples:
- aligning shapes with one another;
- recognizing the subtleties of color [for instance, the same color can appear darker or lighter; more of one hue than another);
- visual facets of f a subject in a picture appear alike together are quite dissimilar when apart . . . as two [or more] distinct puzzle parts.
Zimad's Magic Jigsaw Puzzles and Microsoft Jigsaw - doing the daily challenge - are my go-to.
The images are oft mundane, even boring ; but there is setting to change the puzzle form shapes that allows for some change in how the exercise plays through.
ASIDE: Suggestions are welcomed but especially:
- Outer Space / sci-fi / gamer image-ish;
- Anime
- hustle and bustle of life sites
- (cityscapes; farmers markets;
- busy bustle social scenes
- bodegas,
- arts & culture events;
- except for futbol/soccer; rugby, basketball; swim meets, wrestling matches; woodmen's competitions
- but NAH on pro sports extravaganza stuff.
And I >DO< use hints options sometimes, tho try not to. It's not cheating to use tools to help complete a task more adeptly and help improve skills. Magic Jigsaws has an easy to use hints button (lower right panel on this screenshot.
Used it to complete the puzzle and stay in my allowed time parameters [20 minutes] otherwise I could get totally wrapped up and forget everything I need to do for jigsawing.
Haven't the patience to do individual searches on these jigsaw visual options, but welcome site specific suggestions.
IMAGE : Screenshot of a Magic Jigsaw Puzzle I worked on today 3 Sept 2021.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)