8.11.2006

Deconstruction/Reconstruction

I feel like an archaeologist searching my hard drive, random notes and e-mails for the postings that dwelled here at one time. We're planning on restoring most of it, including some of the Colbert business and our domain squatting adventures in the coming days.

A sense of focus as to the purpose of this blog may well be in order, but given that it serves as a cathartic chronicle of events in and around the building of Progresswear, it's only fitting that topics covered here reach beyond the obvious nuts and bolts of creating a new business venture. The passion for politics and well crafted satire which drive us are but one side of this man's view of the pop culture and current event landscape in which he dwells.

There's a painter first and foremost here, and once you've been through a fine art studio program your world view is permanently askew. Add a lifetime spent in advertising and design, the painter inside wagging the tail which so loves to bite the hand that feeds him. A renaissance Luddite who swore he'd never own a computer crusading for simpler user experiences and a life lived outside of one's monitor. A seasoned eye begging for higher standards in design and aesthetics and the expulsion of mediocre practitioners of this once respected art form. An insistence on better web typography that will save you, dear reader, from years of near blindness if you simply switch to a Mac and read only standards based sites.

Progresswear, and our compulsion to get thoughts off our chests and onto the ribcages of others wouldn't be what it is without a world view gazing in many directions at once. My hope is that this blog is an accurate and occasionally entertaining reflection of all that drives us.

Cul-de-Sac

I'm exhibiting in a show at the Radford University Art Museum in Radford Virginia next month. Preston Thayer, the museum's director and curator of the exhibition picked up two pieces yesterday for their voyage south. As my painting career has been on a bit of a back burner more often than not these past few years, I'm honored and encouraged by my inclusion in what promises to be an engaging exhibit.

As postwar homes populate my paintings, many feel that my work is about suburbia. I quickly correct them, stating that my hometown which I paint is a small city, not suburbia. Nonetheless it's a subject oft addressed by artists raised from the baby boom to Generation X and I do indeed share many of their sensibilities and observations about life in these United States.

The University's site has a flash presentation halfway down the museum's page featuring several of the artists. I'll be exhibiting The Siege of Jean Avenue (illustrated here) and Madonna of the Power Lines, two pieces from the early 90s.

Cul-de-Sac: Art from a Suburban Nation
A dozen contemporary artists’ take on the ‘burbs. Multiple viewpoints, multiple media.
Radford University Art Museum
Radford, Virginia