CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

Hamlet is a small southern town near the Great Pee Dee River. It’s quiet streets and colorful architecture only hint at its dramatic past. You might mistake Hamlet for just another poor southern town with many empty storefronts, faded colors and little future. But things happened here and there are echoes of the past all around. If you listen to the sounds, you may still here the crossing of trains, cries of pain and jazz notes in the air. Three major rail lines crisscross the town dividing it. No visit there is complete without a long train rumbling through town. The Hamlet Passenger Station (still active today) houses the National Railroad Museum.  In 1991, the infamous Hamlet Chicken Plant fire broke out at Imperial Foods killing 25 people. The cries and suffering spurred a national movement to improve working and safety conditions in plants that still continues today.  Most surprising tough is that John Coltrane, the jazz great, was born here in 1926. ...

“I am an artist, with the hands of a craftsman, the mind of an engineer, and the imagination of a dreamer.”  Frankie Flood  I always enjoy university galleries. The newness of the art mixed with the iconic campus buildings always delight. At Winthrop University in Rock Hill, NC, campus galleries are housed in the Rutledge Building and adjoining McLaurin Hall.  The experience reminded me of what a university can be. A place where your mind can grow. Where eclectic doctrines can be drawn from a universe of free thinking. Where that thinking can be a foundation for a well lived life. The galleries highlight faculty and student art. Some have a serious bent such as “Selective Memory” by Kristen Stolle which examines the relationship between agribusiness and the bio chemical industry. However, you are quickly drawn to the other art and its placement in the galleries.  The two buildings housing the art are mostly naturally lit. The age of the buil...

Love is where you find it. Rich or poor, the gift of love can always be found. With it, anything is possible in life. More important than all the riches in the world, love adds to our lives in every way. Giving love costs nothing. Earning love only costs the most noble parts of being human - Honesty, compassion, loyalty, forgiving and willingness to sacrifice for another. Finding love today, will reward you tomorrow and the many days of our lives. “ We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love can we create the illusion for the moment that we are not alone”.  Olson Wells

Sometimes ways out are more difficult than they appear...

The much maligned Seattle Viaduct is gone. Torn down for some imagined improvement to the City. It will be missed by at least by me. I spent 25 years in Seattle and traveled the Viaduct every day. Engineers felt it could be rebuilt for a fraction of what replaces it. An opportunity now lost. I first drove through Seattle in the 60’s right after the worlds fair on the way to Vancouver. The Viaduct the only way north. That evening the city bask in the warm glow of a Puget Sound sunset. The only tall buildings were the Smith Tower and the Seattle Seafirst First black box. The promise of the city and magic were everywhere. All seen from the Viaduct. Much of my business future lay before me, but I did not know it then. When my wife and I moved to Seattle to begin our careers, we lived just south of downtown.  Our jobs were in the core of the city. The Viaduct always the best route. You could labor 30 minutes on I -5 or be in town in 5 via the Viaduct. Viewed in jus...

"After the Holidays Calm"

“There is a difference in what people are willing to consider daytime versus nighttime. It’s dark and you don’t know what’s out there. And the way things are now, there may be something.” -  Art Bell, Para Normal Radio Host Always the night deterred me. Despite the dramatic color, the mystery of the dark and the impact of the stark images that were possible, I remained reluctant to venture out with my camera into the darkness. Maybe it was the Loneliness of the dark or the void it created reflecting on things that lacked in me. I was not sure. Great photographers like Brassards, Schwab, Brook and Paiva made their reputations on photos at night. This is a new year and I promised myself to overcome the fear of night photography and study the techniques involved. Venture out I have. Rewards for those efforts flowed back to me. I learned more about my camera, learned new techniques and enjoyed working with the equipment. I pass on a few of these by way of hints. Equip...

"Social Gathering at MOMA Art Museum" 2019 is off and running. All your marketing channels are set. You have completed your LinkedIn profile, launched your website, started a blog and have a long list of business meetings to go to.  Great work, but there is one thing forgotten and that is YOU. The most success business people I have known could pick up more business over lunch or a social gathering than I could in a year of cold calls and business to business contacts. How did they do this? They took time to follow their interests in life. They did not do this for business but created new business because of it. The art not for business marketing. These successful professionals understood the importance of people to people marketing. To do this, they got involved where their personal interests took them. This might include joining an art museum, toastmasters, a meet up group for the movies, joining a charitable organization, or a ski club. All these interest ...

Painting is always a challenge. There are so many colors, themes, materials and brush strokes to consider. Still, for me, it helps loosen the ropes on my creativity and vision. The most successful attempts are often when the brush finds it's own path and when paint mixes a certain way. Ways often never repeated again. In this coming year, my hope in art is to cast a wider net, to take chances and to let the brush of camera, canvas and pen run where they want to. David Young