NOMOs

Only in New Orleans

Posted on August 4, 2007 by Varg

I was at N. Rampart and St. Bernard intersection yesterday and was trying to snap a photo of a billboard by this local attorney that strangely features a photo of him looking rather disheveled. This post was originally going to have that photo and some text inquiring as to why a legal professional would put…

A Man on the Morning Street

Posted on April 20, 2007 by Varg

I just stepped out onto my porch in a bathrobe and said hi to a man walking down the street. He asked me how I was doing and I asked him how he was doing and we got to talking. He said he was an electrical engineer and he left New Orleans in 1980 and…

Rolled Up On My House

Posted on April 9, 2007 by Varg

Whoa! I was just across the street helping a neighbor install a light and several NOPD cruisers rolled up on my house and got out with shotguns and rifles drawn. Two ran up to the door and one around back. My fiance was in the house and had no idea what was going on. I…

Last Night…

Posted on November 10, 2006 by Varg

I was coming home from dinner last night and I had just turned the corner at Whitney and Burmaster when a car zoomed past me at around 100 mph, missed me by a foot or so. I hadn’t finished thinking to myself, “What an asshole” when an NOPD cruiser sped past in chase. Inspired, I…

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.