State Of New York Counties

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Leroy New York

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Teeccino

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So I have an obsession that I've been trying to quell—I am a lover of coffee. But coffee does not love me back, in fact it really hates me and does a terrible little dance in my stomach whenever consumed, but god love it, sometimes I just don't care. I want that coffee!

To avoid the crazed state I reach when caffeinated (see above), I've been on the search for beverages that taste like coffee, perhaps offer a little bit of a pick-me-up, but don't send me head first into the land of the zany after only half a cup. Seriously, it's embarrassing.

This is why I love Teeccino. Oh it is so good. With ingredients that include: carob, barley, chicory root, dates, figs, and almonds (depending on the flavor) I can have a coffee-type beverage that offers robust flavors, but without the coffee affects. If you are trying to stop drinking as much coffee, this is a great substitute to try—so check out Teeccino, and you'll find there are alternatives to coffee that taste just as good.

Photo: Stacey

We can all use a little savasana

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Out of all the yoga poses I practice on a weekly basis, savasana is my favorite. Savasana is the pose which concludes most yoga classes, and everyone lays still on their mat with arms and legs relaxed.

But this pose isn't just for yoga—savasana is an every day practice, a meditation in itself. It's amazing what five minutes at the end of class aims to teach us. To cultivate stillness, feel the breath in our body, release our muscles, and leave our thoughts and problems outside the class door—this is sometimes the hardest pose of all.

Photo: ccyhan

I'm tired ... (a stream writing exercise)

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Today is the first day since the Blogathon started that I'm really tired. It's been a long week at work, and writing a post seems almost too laborious at this point. But instead of lying here on my bed staring at my computer with sheer exhaustion lingering in my eyes at 11pm on a Friday, I'm writing about it.

This is what the Blogathon taught me last year—no matter how tired you are, or if you think you have nothing to write about—that blog post needs to be published! No thinking, just writing. Even if you write about how tired you are, well that's something. And look, I just wrote one hundred words. They may not be the best one hundred words I've ever written, but I wrote them, and now my post is done. Exercise complete.

Photo: Juliane Riedl

Sarangi Day 2010

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Come one, Come all! Friends in Kathmandu, we welcome you to join us for a full day of traditional Nepali folk music, October 29th @ Comfort Zone in Thamel, Kathmandu.

This year, Sarangi Day will feature over 8 hours of live music from the unsung legends of Nepali folk music, hailing from Gorkha, Lamjung, Hyangja, Palpa, Pokhara, and Kathmandu. It all takes place in the relaxing rooftop environs of Comfort Zone, just north of 7 corners in Thamel atop the Bank of Kathmandu Building. If you've not yet seen our film we'll be screening it at 7:30 PM.

Admission is absolutely free of charge, with exceptional food and drink available for purchase from the restaurant and bar.

Here's the map to Comfort Zone in Thamel:
We hope you'll join us for this once-a-year celebration of Nepali music, food & film!

Questions? Call Jake in Kathmandu (+977) 980-886-3412.

In the week leading up to Sarangi Day, we'll also be hosting master classes from 3 elder Gandharba musicians for young sarangi players, offered free of charge to Nepalis. Contact Kedar for details: (+977) 984-124-9004.

On the same day (October 29th), back in Erwin, Tennesee, you can catch the MMP film at the Southern Appalachian Film Festival, 2:20 PM at the Kinsport Public Library.

DC Area Film Showing!!

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The Mountain Music Project will have a showing of the film in the DC area and it will be accompanied by a live concert of Nepali-Appalachian music! Should be a really great night. Below are the details.

Our film "The Mountain Music Project: A Musical Odyssey from Appalachia to Himalaya"
will be followed by a live concert of Appalachian-Himalayan music with Danny Knicely, Tara Linhardt, Prem Raja Mahat, Rajendra Karn, and Raj Kapoor and a question answer session about the film and the musics of the two regions.
Tue, Dec 7,
7-9pm
Admission: free
Co-hosted by Sidwell Friends Global Programs and Asia Society Washington

Where:
Mary Ellen Caplin Theater
Kogod Arts Center
Sidwell Friends School
3825 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016

Film Screening & Concert at The Rubin Museum in New York City

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Well, it looks like we have one more screening coming up!
We are honored to be showing our film at The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City on Friday, February 25, 2011 at 7 PM. This screening will be followed by a live performance of Nepali-Appalachian music featuring the Mountain Music Project's Danny Knicely, Tara Linhardt, Raj Kapoor, and Manoz Mahat. We may even have an added special guest... You'll just have to come and see it to find out.

The Rubin Museum is a beautiful venue in Manhattan with top of the line everything. Watching a movie on a really nice screen with a great sound system and fantastic acoustics... That is going to be sooo nice!

Hope to see you there!


Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17^th Street
New York, NY 10011

Box office: 212.620.5000 ext. 344 and on line at www.rmanyc.org

Tickets: $15 in advance, includes admission to the museum’s galleries
RMA Members receive 10% discount

Rubin Museum Show in New York City

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Thanks so much for all the folks that came out to see our film and concert at the beautiful Rubin Museum in New York. Also a big thank you to the folks at the museum who were such a delight to work with and keep that really amazing place running so smoothly. If you have never been to the Rubin Museum make sure to check it out!

Also humble apologies to so many folks who came out to the show or tried to buy tickets the day of the show, but couldn't get any because it was sold out.

It is so great to have so much interest in our project, but at the same time we felt so bad seeing just how many people did get turned away at the door. I included at the right the flier some folks sadly saw that stated that no more seats were available...

Seeing how great the interest in New York is, we will try to arrange to have another showing in New York City in the future. Stayed tuned. :)

FIRST 3 LINO'S FROM CHIANG MAI TRIP

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These are the first 3 lino's I've cut and printed based on the sketches from my trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand as part of the group Volunteer Positive. (And one linocut from my friend Phra Kritsada Prueprong) The first 2.5 weeks was spent in service which afforded me very little time to actually draw on my own, most of the prints from the full series were sketched out on my last week in Chiang Mai. The only 1 of these 3 lino's that was sketched during my actual service is the Elephant sketches print. We spent an afternoon at the BAAN CHANG ELEPHANT PARK in Chiang Mai where after a educational introduction to the Asian Elephants in residence we had lunch and a few minutes to digest our food before the 2-hour trek we were about tro partake in. Having not had much opportunity to do any prior sketch work, I had the foresight to bring along a few pieces of pre-cut lino and stole away for 20 minutes after lunch and did these sketches. Let it be known, elephants do not stand still, ever. It was a challenge to get a complete sketch, which explains why there are so many partial elephants in this print.

The print of the Monk is in fact a dear friend I made while in Chiang Mai. He is a 20 year old Monk named Phra Kritsada Prueprong originally from a village outside of Chiang Mai in Loei province. We were paired up as part of something called "Monk Chat" which is an event that creates the opportunity for local monks to practice their conversational skills with English speaking foreigners. On this particular morning, Kritsada and I took a tour of a few of the local temples and I decided that since he would share with me, I would share with him by having us both work on a lino sketch. I offered to take his drawing back to NYC with me where i would cut it out and print it for him. I had no idea that he could actually draw and was quite talented. It turned out to be an incredible opportunity for the both of us.

The print of the banners was from Wat Phrasingh in Chiang Mai. I'm not sure of the exact purpose of the banners, but if you look carefully, you will see representation of 3 Birth Year Animals. As there were many more banners there, I assume that's what they were there to represent.
SKETCH OF ELEPHANTS ON LINO


PARTIALLY CARVED LINO


INKED LINO



FINAL PRINT



PORTRAIT OF "DAVID" - BY KRITSADA PRUEPRONG


PORTRAIT OF KRITSADA - BY DAVID BERUBE


WAT PHRASINGH - CUT LINO



WAT PHRASINGH - FINAL PRINT

In Hoi An...Day Two

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Photo © tewfic el-sawy

Having woken up really early in the hopes of catching the fishermen  hauling their catch did not make any difference, as there were no fishing boats which venture out to sea this morning....the level of water was unusually high so that may have played a part in it.

The main objectives of the rest of the day was for the participants start working on a personal photo essay, and learn the fundamentals of Soundslides. We had also booked a model for an afternoon photo shoot.

I initiated a photo essay which deals with an octogenarian and his wife who both own and operated coffee house, and hope to produce along the lines of the successful One In 8 Million series by the New York Times.

Photo © tewfic el-sawy

Finally, we hired Tien...a beautiful model from Hoi An, and spent the better of a late afternoon photographing her in the Old Quarter of Hoi An. The photo shoot lasted longer than anticipated as we sought to squeeze every little moment of light.

Photo © Maika Elan- All Rights Reserved

The Soundslides session in the afternoon was held in the bar of the Hoi An Hotel. Sound editing classes via Audacity will start in Hue.

In Hue....Day Two

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Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Having driven from Da Nang to Hue yesterday, I noticed a Cao Ä�ài temple close to our hotel. I had wanted to visit and photograph the rituals associated with this religious tradition for quite a while now, so the presence of this temple was extremely exciting.

Cao Ä�ài is a syncretistic, monotheistic religion, officially established in the city of Tây Ninh, southern Vietnam in 1926. Its adherents engage in ethical practices such as prayer, veneration of ancestors, nonviolence, and vegetarianism. Estimates of its adherents range from 3 to 6 million, most of which are in Vietnam. Some of its saints are Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, William Shakespeare, Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Following a few telephone calls and a visit by Maika Elan and Quoc Anh, we secured the approval of the head priest to photograph its daily prayer at noon. Both Maika and I had to meet him again this morning, and to reassure him that we were serious photographers, interested in documenting world religions.
We were allowed to photograph at will during the prayer ceremony, and to interview the congregation. It was extremely fortuitous that we were allowed to do so, as my understanding that the main Cao Ä�ài temple in Southern Vietnam doesn't allow visitors except on the upper balconies during prayer times.

Photo © Quoc "Ron" Anh- All Rights Reserved

In Sapa...Or Is It Sa Pa?

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After a somewhat restless night spent on the Victoria Hotel Express Train from Hanoi to Lao Cai, we are now in Sa Pa...the launching hub for treks into the territories of the hill tribes such as the H'mong, Red Zao and Zao.Visiting minorities always carries issues relating to whether payment should be made for taking photographs of these very photogenic people. But I have no time here to go in any depth as to what is right or wrong.

However, if the Red Zao and H'mong seek to sell some of their handmade wares to visitors, I see no wrong in buying a trinket against taking photographs of their lifestyles.Having no need for the stuff they sell, I decided to buy large pack of biscuits/cookies for a group of Red Zao women, and gave it to them as an expression of 'giving back'.

That said, the Red Zao (in particular Mamei -shown in the lower photograph-) are incredibly persistent...some do so with humor and wit, while others do it less well and it becomes a drag. 

Notwithstanding these issues, the eventful day will be on Sunday during the Bac Ha market during which many of the hill tribes come down from their villages to the market to sell, buy, socialize and so forth.

The Portraitist Of Hang Ngang Street

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Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy

Little excites me more than walking the streets of a crowded and vibrant city like Hanoi, and meeting people with stories, history and talent in whatever craft they exercise. Nguyen Bao Nguyen is one of those.

Walking down Hang Ngang Street in old Hanoi, I stopped at Nguyen's storefront/atelier...drawn by his very realistic portraits of French and American actors, and other luminaries as well as other common folk. His store's walls covered with his work, showing erstwhile French actors such as Jean Gabin, Yves Montand and even Alain Delon...Gary Cooper and John Wayne represented the United States.

Nguyen's craft is in drawing/copying old (or damaged) photographs in exquisite details; a painstaking task that can take him many days. Very cheerful, he announced that his English wasn't too fluent, and his French was somewhat limited.

Notwithstanding, we got along well...and he immediately grasped I wanted to make a short story of him and his work.He was very proud I had come into his "atelier" as he described it, and it took no effort whatsoever to have him speak of his work, his youth and his work. Normally, I have to goad the person I'm interviewing to talk more, but Nguyen needed no encouragement whatsoever.

Returning to my hotel, I listened to the audio I had captured during my couple of hours with him, and it was fine and perfectly suited to what I hope to produce.  Depending on what I find in the couple of days to come, I may well return for another photo shoot at Nguyen's storefront.

Catru: A Vietnamese Musical Tradition

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I had never heard of Catru before, but I happened to find a brochure about it in the wonderful Golden Silk Boutique Hotel, whose location and staff made it our home during my Vietnam photo expedition.

Reading that Catru is a Vietnamese religious music genre, and born in the tradition of northern Vietnam, I made it an option for the participants of the expedition to attend one of its performances which are held in a restored 110 years old building (known as nha co) at 87 Ma May street in Old Hanoi. My reasoning from a practical standpoint was simple; record the performance so as to provide ambient background to the multimedia projects produced out of this trip.

Catru was already played during the 15th century during ceremonies at the Vietnamese court, but during the 1950s fell in disrepute due to its association with opium and the like.

The musician/singer in the above photograph is Ms Pham Thi Hue, a famous practitioner of this art form, who performed beautiful musical pieces during the hour-long session.

Catru Thang Long has a wonderful website, with video clips and background.

Mountain Music Project in Texas

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In June, we took the Mountain Music Project to Houston, Texas.

The Asia Society had us come down there and show the film and perform some of our hot Nepali and Appalachian traditional music for them live.

We played to yet another packed house. Sorry for any of you who got turned away at the door. Also apologies to all of you who were interested in buying our CD project and our film. We are hoping to have available by this fall, so stay tuned.

All of the people that we met both at this Texas show and at our last show in Ohio at Muskingum University have been so nice and so excited about the project. We had some great questions and discussions about the instruments and film and the cultures. It is so wonderful to see so many people becoming interested both in Nepali and Appalachian traditional musics and cultures!

Sammy Shelor wins yet another award

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Sammy Shelor is one of the Virginian/Appalachian musicians that we have interviewed in our soon to be released documentary and we would like to congratulate him on his most recent award!

He added so much to our story and our film adding his own insights into the music and the culture of the music of the Appalachian region as we knew that he would. It is great to see him recognized for his skills and knowledge by yet another esteemed group.

He is certainly no stranger to winning awards. He has been named as the International Bluegrass Music Association' Banjo Player of the Year four times and Huber banjos have made a signature model of Sammy Shelor banjos and fingerpicks to to name a few of his honors. His most recent honor has been named as this years' recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. This prize is quite an honor and also is accompanied by the $50,000 award money.

http://www.wdbj7.com/news/wdbj7-patrick-county-picker-wins-steve-martins-admiration-and-award-20110907,0,7089888.story

http://virginiafolklife.org/2011/09/folklife-showcase-presenter-sammy-shelor-named-steve-martin-prize-winner/

In case anyone was wondering, a similar award does not yet exist for mandolin players, but perhaps in time...

Congratulations Sammy! A well deserved award.

It is so nice to see that sometimes playing mountain music really can have some advantages! :)

soon to launch our kickstarter

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We are happy to announce that we are about to launch a kickstarter to raise funds needed to print and release our completed documentary film and our awesome collaborative CD project! Many folks have been interested in purchasing the final completed projects and we are very happy that we have the projects completed and are finally at this last stage to get them out and available to the public!

We will need all the help we can get getting the word out about our projects and our kickstarter, so please share the link and tell lots of folks about us and how they can help us out.

We will post the link as soon as the project is officially launched, but here are just a few things folks have been saying about the projects who have seen and heard them.

About our film:

"Two traditional musicians from the hills of Virginia take you to the villages of rugged Nepal, where you discover the amazing similarities between Appalachian and Himalayan folk music—and the eerily parallel heritage that gave birth to them both. This vivid portrayal of endangered music and culture celebrates remarkable instruments, foot-tapping sounds, and the people who create them."

Jonathan B. Tourtellot
National Geographic Fellow;
Founding Director, Center for Sustainable Destinations;
Geotourism Editor, National Geographic Traveler

“What they did in that film would not be possible for a lot of people. You don’t get that kind of response from people when you just go interview them. They lived with and jammed with the musicians as a musician. There is no better way to do it!”

Curtis Burch

Grammy award winning musician and one of the founding members of the legendary and pioneering bluegrass band New Grass Revival.

And about our CD Project:

“The CD project, “The Mountain Music Project” beautifully illuminates the parallel experiences of musicians from Virginia and Nepal. We see and hear these fiddlers and flute players, banjo pickers and drummers playing in new urban environs as well as in their native chicken yards. To so many, they represent a constant in the face of changing times and lifestyles. These honorable troubadours keep the old songs and stories alive, reminding us all where we come from.”

Tim Obrien

Grammy Award winning musician and bluegrass and old time music legend.

MMP Kickstarter Starts Today!

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We have launched our kickstarter campaign!!
We are really excited and hopeful that we can raise enough money to finally get both the documentary out and available for purchase as well as our really great CD project.

Please click on this link and check out our kickstarter page. It has some nice links to video clips from the film too! There is some cool information about the project and a link to see some clips from the film too! If you've got a few spare dollars, rupees, ngultrum, baht, pounds, pesos, or togrog, we've got some very nice gifts for you... Help us out by checking out the site and if you can you can donate too here.

Also we need all the help we can get getting the word out so please share, post, and email this link to anyone that you think might be interested!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/737800704/the-mountain-music-project-documentary-film-and-cd

Keep the kickstarter kickin!!

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Keep the kickstarter kickin!

So now thanks to kickstarter and our wonderful friends and supporters we now have enough money to print these CDs and DVDs! Yay! Thanks to everyone who has been helping so much with spreading the word and with the generous donations! When we chose our kickstarter goal we were very worried about making too high of a goal since if we were to fall even one dollar short, we would not get even a penny. We just factored in the most basic and immediate of needs.

We still need help though! Please keep spreading the word about the kickstarter! We would love to keep this kickstarter momentum rolling!

We have been chastised many times for our lack of website. If we can keep the donations rolling in we can hopefully have enough money to set up a real website and also have a budget to hire a publicist and buy some ads to get this project released in a really professional way!

Thanks y’all!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/737800704/the-mountain-music-project-documentary-film-and-cd/posts

My love of Beantown: Subway performers

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Another reason I love Boston? The subway performers. Boston is lucky to have an abundance of street performers both indoors and out, and as an avid work commuter, there is something about the echo of an accordion/guitar/sax in the subway tunnel that soothes the tired mind.

My other favorite time for street musicians—when I've been out of town traveling, and arrive back home. Getting on the train from the airport and landing at South Station to the riffs of an electric guitar is a great way to be welcomed back to the city. 

That being said, my favorite spots for a real life soundtrack are South Station and Park Street. Even there on a busy Saturday evening, I've seen everything from a solo performer to a boy band performing pop music covers to an attentive crowd. There's something magical about experiencing music in public, and observing how others react as well. It brings people together, and I'm glad we are able to enjoy this luxury.

Photo: kaybee07

I'm tired ... (a stream writing exercise)

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Today is the first day since the Blogathon started that I'm really tired. It's been a long week at work, and writing a post seems almost too laborious at this point. But instead of lying here on my bed staring at my computer with sheer exhaustion lingering in my eyes at 11pm on a Friday, I'm writing about it.

This is what the Blogathon taught me last year—no matter how tired you are, or if you think you have nothing to write about—that blog post needs to be published! No thinking, just writing. Even if you write about how tired you are, well that's something. And look, I just wrote one hundred words. They may not be the best one hundred words I've ever written, but I wrote them, and now my post is done. Exercise complete.

Photo: Juliane Riedl

Noteworthy links for May 12th

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This week's links bring offerings of creativity, food, and web tips:

1. Erica Napoletano: Perfection Never Gets Invited to Pool Parties —This sassy spitfire of a redhead knows how to tell it - her "Bitch Slap" posts really get me back into gear. I'm always wrestling with letting go of perfection, and this post is a good helper, and it offers advice from Ze Frank—what more do you want?

2. Metis Communications: "Do you want to get hired?—A simple and straightforward list of tips on how to succeed at job interviews (and get hired in the process).

3. Orbit Media Studios: Web Content Checklist—A great easy-to-follow checklist for publishing better content.

4. Whole Foods: Cocoa-Almond Baked Breakfast Quinoa—My stomach growls just reading the recipe title. I hope to get together the ingredients this weekend and try these out.

5. Visual News: What to do on your lunch break? Have a party!—Since reading this article I have posted it on Twitter numerous times, and now on my blog. It's such a great idea! What better way to spend lunch than partying, and then heading back to work all inspired. I really want to do this in Boston. Really.

I hope you enjoy the links for this week!

Photo: Michael Adams-Wade

LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN! | ANALYSIS AND REVIEW

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There's a very good, lengthy analysis and review from Alec Berry and Shawn Starr of my most recent comic book LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN! as well as my other comic book work over at the blog alec reads comics, originally posted to Spandexless.com. Check out the full post here. They get into some interesting discussions about Spiegelman Intellectualism in comics as a result from Kurtzman and EC.

Here's a little of what Alec writes at the beginning of the piece:

I would place myself in that camp of the faithful. Like most of the industry, I too was unaware of Marra’s comics up until this year, but now after having spent time with them, I find his attitude and passion for creating engrossing, and I feel his comics represent a long forgotten aspect of the medium. Representing, of course, for the betterment of comics.Marra’s books, while lewd, grotesque and absurd, are keeping this funny book thing on the ground, balancing out the high reaching works of Craig Thompson, or whatever other clone there may be, celebrating some of the roots associated with comics while simply presenting an artist who doesn’t really give a fuck what you think. Marra’s making the shit he wants to see, and from this I feel it’s appropriate we discuss Marra’s work after our previous discussion which pertained to Rob Liefeld. Because Marra, like Liefeld, celebrates the trash entertainment value found in comics, but does so with an energy and charm that cannot be overridden. Yet, as an added bonus, Marra’s comics juxtapose the trash subject matter by presenting astounding craft and draftsmanship, making his books into these bombastic scraps slammed together with staples.

REVIEW | MANDORLA BLOG

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Santiago Garcia over at his blog Mandorla gives a good survey review of my books from a European perspective of the current American underground comic book movement. Check it out here.

Here's a particularly choice passage (using Google Translator from Spanish) comparing my work to Gilbert Hernandez, whom I consider a hero and who I'm going to try to emulate as far as book production goes (I want to put out a graphic novel a year the same way Béto does it) and Frank Miller and Fletcher Hanks:

But of course, if Marra was interesting conceptual grounds alone, it would not be as great as is. His comics are full of originality and ideas, and are devilishly entertaining read. As entertaining to read as it should be any comic, but especially commercial comics. Its formula of exploitation with breeching is what Gilbert Hernandez brings more than a decade vacuuming without even remotely close to the success that gets Marra in this handful of comics. Reading Night Business one can even reecontrarse with Frank Miller as an icon of the eighties, as a child of the age of the heaters, and realize that while we wanted to ignore it for thirty years, the soundtrack of Daredevil and Elektra was a muscular sax touched by a bodybuilder blurred by smoke in the distance. Yes, exactly what Lost Boys. And the feat of being so vicious and yet maintain a comic naivete of Fletcher Hanks, is that how it is achieved? With a singular talent only.

CD and DVD Release show in Purvcelleville, VA!

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We are happy to announce that we will be having a screening of the documentary at The Franklin Park Barns in Purcelleville, VA on Saturday April 7th at 7 PM.

The film will be followed by a live Appalachian-Himalayan Concert with Danny Knicely, Tara Linhardt, Raj Kapoor, Manoj Mahat, and performing for the first time with The Mountain Music Project gang- bansuri master Rajan Budhathoki, who is coming down from Boston for this momentous concert!

Tickets will be only $15 and can be reserved by calling The Franklin Park Performing Arts Center at (540) 338-7973. The website for the venue is www.FranklinPArkArtsCenter.org.

Our fresh, hot off the shelves CDs and DVDs will be available for purchase for the first time there too!

FIRST 3 LINO'S FROM CHIANG MAI TRIP

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These are the first 3 lino's I've cut and printed based on the sketches from my trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand as part of the group Volunteer Positive. (And one linocut from my friend Phra Kritsada Prueprong) The first 2.5 weeks was spent in service which afforded me very little time to actually draw on my own, most of the prints from the full series were sketched out on my last week in Chiang Mai. The only 1 of these 3 lino's that was sketched during my actual service is the Elephant sketches print. We spent an afternoon at the BAAN CHANG ELEPHANT PARK in Chiang Mai where after a educational introduction to the Asian Elephants in residence we had lunch and a few minutes to digest our food before the 2-hour trek we were about tro partake in. Having not had much opportunity to do any prior sketch work, I had the foresight to bring along a few pieces of pre-cut lino and stole away for 20 minutes after lunch and did these sketches. Let it be known, elephants do not stand still, ever. It was a challenge to get a complete sketch, which explains why there are so many partial elephants in this print.

The print of the Monk is in fact a dear friend I made while in Chiang Mai. He is a 20 year old Monk named Phra Kritsada Prueprong originally from a village outside of Chiang Mai in Loei province. We were paired up as part of something called "Monk Chat" which is an event that creates the opportunity for local monks to practice their conversational skills with English speaking foreigners. On this particular morning, Kritsada and I took a tour of a few of the local temples and I decided that since he would share with me, I would share with him by having us both work on a lino sketch. I offered to take his drawing back to NYC with me where i would cut it out and print it for him. I had no idea that he could actually draw and was quite talented. It turned out to be an incredible opportunity for the both of us.

The print of the banners was from Wat Phrasingh in Chiang Mai. I'm not sure of the exact purpose of the banners, but if you look carefully, you will see representation of 3 Birth Year Animals. As there were many more banners there, I assume that's what they were there to represent.
SKETCH OF ELEPHANTS ON LINO


PARTIALLY CARVED LINO


INKED LINO



FINAL PRINT



PORTRAIT OF "DAVID" - BY KRITSADA PRUEPRONG


PORTRAIT OF KRITSADA - BY DAVID BERUBE


WAT PHRASINGH - CUT LINO



WAT PHRASINGH - FINAL PRINT

WAT CHEDI LUANG, CHIANG MAI, THAILAND

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This is one if the last, (only 2 sketches in the series left), of the series of linocut sketches I drew while in Chiang Mai, Thailand in January while doing work for the volunteer group VOLUNTEER POSITIVE.

This image was created while sitting in the shade under a tree surrounding the massive Chedi in Wat Chedi Luang.








From: Thailand For Visitors

"In its day, Wat Chedi Luang must have been the most impressive temple in Chiang Mai. Built about 600 years ago, the huge chedi which gave the temple its name (the name of the temple translates to "royal pagoda") must have soared high above the surrounding city. We say "must have" because the chedi was mostly destroyed within a few hundred years of its construction. Some say it was an earthquake in the 17^th century that did the deed; others say it was King Taksin's cannons firing on the city to chase out the Burmese in the 18^thcentury."


"The pagoda has been partially reconstructed, but the spire has not been recreated since nobody can be sure what it looked like."

"GOLDEN BUDDHA" - PROCESS AND PRINTS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

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"GOLDEN BUDDHA"
 This is my "Golden Buddha" which is a lino-cut produced in the Chine-cole' technique. All Buddha prints available measures approximately 6" X 9" and are printed on Rives BFK 100% rag, archival quality paper, (with the exception of the gold metallic paper). There are some Buddhas on Grey Paper, others on Cream, and still others on White. Each print is being sold for $40, and is being sold in order to raise funds for a return trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand in September where I will be working with the wonderful folk at Cultural Canvas/Art Relief International. The original print of the Buddha was drawn on-site, directly on to the piece of linoleum, and then cut and printed upon my return to NYC. If you would like to see what's available, you can hit me up on Facebook and take a peek or send me a message here on Blogger.

PRINTED "GOLDEN BUDDHA"

INK LINOLEUM

 

 PLACE SWATCH OF PAPER ONTO INKED LINO, CAREFUL TO NOT SMEAR THE INK  ON TO THE SWATCH 
ADD LIGHTLY DILUTED PH NEUTRAL GLUE TO PAPER SWATCH YOU WANT ADHERED TO THE BASE PAPER AND PRINTED UPON
PLACE BASE PAPER OVER GLUED SWATCH AND INKED LINO, CAREFUL NOT TO SMEAR INK (THIS IS AN IMPORTANT PART ;0)

PRINT WITH GOLD PAPER EMBOSSED

PRINTED "GOLDEN BUDDHA"