kid on swing

labrona's piece from last summer

josey's son

native pride

89 north between cameron + gray mountain

highway 160 near milepost 358

running's wall, flagstaff

photo by james q. martin

sunflower

tilt shift

spike haired woman in a city of thieves

on the way home...

twilight in america

http://blog.vandalog.com/2013/07/its-twilight-in-america/

i'm back!

i'm back.

it's been an interesting time since the painted desert artists for this spring left.  i spent 2 weeks in philadelphia working on a project with the philadelphia mural arts program that resulted in a major fail.  the day i arrived in philly i learned that the wall i was supposed to work on was no longer available to me.  there was a land auction the day i flew to philly and one developer purchased the plot beside the divine lorraine hotel that i was to work on.  developer number 2 wouldn't allow the philly mural arts people and myself to place a lift onto their property to gain access to the wall i was to work on.

the divine lorraine has a fascinating history.  when it was built in the late 1880s it was the tallest building on the east coast.   it went onto become the first integrated hotel in philly in the 1940s under the ownership of reverend major jealous divine, a black religious leader who housed his congregation in the building and created a cafeteria on the first floor to provide cheap meals to people from the community.

the building was closed in 1999 and became a destination for writers from all over the world.

the work in the 2 photos above is by the artist you go girl.  the plan was for me to do a piece on the first wall that interacted with the you go girl tag.  this led me to meeting and doing a project with philly born poet and song writer, ursula rucker.  she led workshops with high school students at sayre high school whom i photographed for a mural at the school.  i learned today that the school merged with another school and the principal whom we worked with and who was supportive of the mural was fired.  so, we'll see what, if anything, becomes of the photos of ursula and the sayre students.

in the meantime, i've been getting work up both on the rez and in flagstaff.  it was nice to take the month of june off to escape the heat.  but, now i'm back.  stay tuned...