CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

 DALTON STREET WINDOWS Even in the most difficult times, Beauty can be found .... (warehouse windows on Dalton Street, Charlotte NC)

  Over the past year we have lived with the devastation of the pandemic. It is difficult to predict when things will return to normal. What is certain is the last year has changed most of us and that confusion reigns about how we might find our path back. How our new selves will emerge, embrace and move forward. The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York exhibit called “Degree Zero” offers some insights on paths back. MOMA researched how great artists like Pollack, Volpi, and Lewis began the process of returning to work after the utter destruction and devastation of World War II. The exhibit is filled with their simple drawings and brush marks. They did not leap into major art pieces. Instead choosing to concentrate on laying down these simple marks and drawings. A way of saying they were still here. Each a foundations and step back to normal. Their method of getting in touch with life again, played out against a landscape that had been brought to zero by the war. ...

"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance." - Carl Sandburg RAINBOW MOTEL They did it for a dollar earned, Hidden hands painting it. No two colors the same, Like a miss mashed family. They kept it alive Though it never thrived. The curious looked  From a freeway near. It stood mostly empty But to us, it was love. PLANT FACE The plant with all its blankness  Faced my life each work day. Like some alien ship Dropped to harvest earth. A dull churning sound Numbing to the senses, always there. I stayed behind in this small plant town When others left. Content for a time To earn mine and know the place. But now, all I did was carry my lunch Into this windowless place each day. To work my shift And know the other bots there. Why we all said silently Had we not left... MAIN STREET Hum of the City Always there. Still I found pause A sight or corner The grandeur of tall buildings And shinny steel. Taking my thoughts away. I loved the city. Maybe grandfather Fr...

  ITS ALL ABOUT THE COLLATERAL YOU HAVE IN 2021......

  Scenes speaking of peace and calmness have always attracted my camera eye. Roaming up and down side streets, finding the artful mark on the wall or an urban moment held still still fill most of my wandering thoughts. Now though, I find myself drawn toward scenes of chaos, where life is jumbled together. Where you can feel its beat mixed in the coming and going of people and things. Signs all barking their messages, trying to draw people in. There is art here, not fully understood by me in the past. Maybe it’s the result of the pandemic that isolates us in so many ways. My senses want life, color, even chaos. You wonder if you will ever return to those times. When you can complain again about crowds, traffic, life ramming together on busy streets. Chaos, I miss your art and wish for it again. David Young

  The long miles and vistas of the desert stretch your mind. You find rare breaks. Ones that cause you to pause. Places and scenes where man and nature came together for a time, leaving remnants of being there.  These are not grand or monuments. They are small places that draw your eyes and being. Left behind, caught by desert light, cast across a few desert acres and beyond in an unsorted way. Ones that don’t change the desert, but give it stillness. Small mysteries always swirl here. Who were the people, what were there dreams. The desert wind blows hot warmth around you. Nothing else but quiet, you and what will be left in your soul from seeing these small scenes. You never know the full story, but are glad they are there. David Young