War with Iran?

There's a frightening article in the current New Yorker by Seymour Hersch, entitled "Preparing the Battlefield". It's getting a ton of attention in the national media. I heard an interview with Hersch today on NPR's Fresh Aire show, for example.

Hersch's thesis is that the Bush administration is running a clandestine military and CIA operation inside Iran right now, aimed at forcing the Iranians to stop their nuclear weapons program. If they don't get that, then they want regime change. Hersch contends that the Bush administration (primarily Cheney) is trying to run Special Operations missions from the White House while keeping the senior military commanders in the region out of the loop. This, he contends, is what forced Admiral Fallon out of his post as CENTCOM (the guy in overall charge of US military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, the Persian Gulf, and so forth). (See my posts of March 11 and March 17 talking about this issue.) The CIA operations are covered under a Presidential Finding, which is extremely classified. The military operations are covered under Bush's constitutional authority as commander in chief. Both have been conflated into one operation that's being run outside of all the normal chains of command with all their hard-learned checks and balances.

The theme that ran through the input from all of Hersch's sources was that the Administration wants to attack Iran before Bush leaves office. Hersch said as much in his NPR interview today, citing specifically a fear of an "October surprise", or possibly something soon after the election.

You might remember that back in December, there was a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that concluded that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, and hasn't been since 2003. This, of course, is not the answer that Bush wanted to hear. Since then he has been consistently talking up the Iranian threat.

I, personally, have been ignoring him, figuring it's the last gurgles from a turd getting flushed down the drain. Hersch's article says that the turd is still looking to fire some missiles before he goes. And unfortunately, as the Commander in Chief, he still has the constitutional authority to do it.

There are only a few safeguards remaining. One is that Congress can cut off the funds. Not likely, but write your Senators and Congressmen anyway. Another is that more articles like Hersch's will keep the spotlight on Bush/Cheney and prevent them from causing much more damage. A third is that some brave military members will stand up to the President and refuse to carry out an attack, even if that means the end of their careers. I'm not comfortable with this last one. Admiral Fallon is one who was in position to stop Bush, but he was forced out, and replaced by General Petraeus. Now Petraeus is a great soldier, but he's a can-do guy, and not one who bothers to ask the "why" question.

An attack on Iran is the most incredibly stupid action this country could do right now. It's even more stupid than the Iraq invasion. IT MUST BE STOPPED.

Musings about Saturday Night Live

I watched Saturday Night Live this past weekend. Because George Carlin passed away last week, they replayed the very first SNL show ever, since he was the host that night in 1975. It was quite a trip down memory lane. No, I didn't see the very first SNL show, although I've seen an outtake or two from it. But watching it brought back so many memories, thoughts, and feelings from that time. I was in college then, with a big ol' head of hair, wide lapels, and bell-bottom blue jeans. Pretty much like several of the cast and guests.

This may be heresy, but I didn't think this was one of Carlin's better performances. It was kind of a mish-mash of several themes with nothing much to tie them together. It was cool to see John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Gilda Radner, and Jane Curtin together, though. Since this was their first show, they didn't have the big personalities that we associate with them now. They were just cast members, all on a level playing field. Even Belushi.

The first musical guest was Billy Preston doing his hit of the time, "Nothing from Nothing". His hair was almost as big as mine was, but with a much better cut. Quite campy. SNL had a second musical guest, Janis Ian. I was a big fan of hers back then. She sang her hit song, "Seventeen". I thought it was an odd choice because "Seventeen" is a real downer, all about hypocrisy and being the odd kid out. It's tremendously strong, but it's not the kind of "get out and have a good time" song that I associate with SNL. (Kinda like my paintings aren't exactly your "good time" wall decorations, either!)

While I was working in the studio today, I dug out my old Janis Ian album, "Between the Lines", which has "Seventeen" on it. It still holds its own after 33 years. The lyrics cut to the chase and are fresh and honest. Janis Ian's voice is clear, there's no posturing, and she's a great storyteller. It was good to hear it again. I need to get it onto my iPod.

Sunday Afternoon

Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone .... ooops, that's not an original line ... actually, it's been a very busy week in Mars Hill. I spent most of the week working on various packages of paperwork for the State Department. Had to go to the doctor for a few tests ... just had a physical not two weeks ago, fortunately, so these were just a few extra items, and I seem to be in pretty good health for an old fart. And I spent a lot of time driving around from one errand to another: pick up paintings from shows in Hendersonville and Marshall, get a haircut, go to meetings here or there. Basically, just go, go, go. Next week should be much quieter.

I've written a few times about our dog Indy, who has Addison's syndrome and has to take a steroid every day. She developed a problem with incontinence. Or rather, we had the problem, since she always seemed to have it when she was taking her afternoon nap on our bed. After yet another visit to the vet, we've cut her dosage of prednizone down to 1/8 of a pill in the morning and another 1/8 pill in the afternoon. We're talking dosages about the size of a grain of sand. But it seems to be about the right level, since she hasn't had any accidents in over a week now. Knock on wood.

Rick, Julie, and Jackson are out on Lake Powell right now. Here's a picture of the Jacks getting ready for the trip. The little guy loves Wave Runners!

This next week, I want to spend a good bit of time in the studio. There are three paintings that I want to get done before heading out on my year-long Mideast vacation. Will post more about them when I've got something to show.

Baghdad Bound

Yes, you read that right. I've been conditionally offered a job with the State Department to work on reconstruction projects in Baghdad. "Conditionally" means it's pending the normal security, medical, and other checks. They're telling me that these checks might take 6-8 weeks. Then there will be 2-3 weeks of training in the DC area before moving on to Iraq. I'll be there for a year, working and living in the Embassy compound.

I started applying for State jobs in Iraq back in November. You can read my entry for Nov 19 for more information about the whys and wherefors. In March, they suddenly called me and said I was eligible for one particular job and I needed to get lots of information in within 48 hours. So I did. And then heard nothing. For weeks. When I called the "information" number listed, I got a recording that basically said "we're too busy to talk to you". Eventually I decided that I wasn't going to get the job and so I was moving on to other things. I was lined up to teach a workshop, I was on the Board of Directors at the Asheville Area Arts Council, had a couple of grant proposals in the works, was developing some promo materials for courtroom artist gigs, that sort of thing. And then the phone call came that I'd been selected for the job. "You know everything you're working on? Drop it! You're going to Baghdad, buddy!"

I'm really excited about it. I like the idea of working to rebuild the place, of making a contribution, of gathering material for future paintings. It goes back many years: I finagled my way into Desert Shield/Storm and Bosnia for much the same reason. If something big is going on, I want to be a part of it. Only this time, I won't be a military guy doing combat support, I'll be a civilian doing reconstruction. That's cool. And in the background I'll be storing up images (in my head, on camera, or on paper) for future artworks.

So for the past week, I've been filling out State Department forms for security investigations, W4's, and insurance designations. And creating never-ending lists of things to do (and occasionally getting one of them crossed off). The ball is rolling.

And I'm stoked!

The Purple Ball

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. I haven't painted nor drawn anything in ages, and have been running from one project to another. So there are a lotta things to get caught up on. (If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you've probably noticed that's a fairly consistent state of affairs for me ... except I normally get a lot more art done).

Last weekend, the Asheville Area Arts Council had its Purple Ball. This is an annual event. Every year they change the color, but it's a big social to-do in this town. I'd never gone to it, though. While I was in the Navy, I went to tons of Balls. Every year, there was the Navy Day Ball, the Marine Corps Ball, the Army Ball, and the Air Force Ball, plus any other civilian events that popped up. I did a lot of dressing up in fancy uniforms, polishing my shoes, and buying new gowns for the wife. Since leaving the service, I've never been the least bit interested in doing it again. But now that I'm on the board of the Council, it was made pretty clear that I was expected to at least show my face at one of the pre-Ball parties. It was called the Patron Party. I was under the impression that it would be a schmooze-fest with key donors to the Arts Council, and that it would be a stuffy affair that I could escape from fairly quickly.

Oh, how wrong I was.

When a 6-foot guy with big, broad shoulders comes walking in wearing a purple off-the-shoulders gown with purple bustier, big falsies, 6" stilleto heels, a huge platinum-blonde wig, expertly applied makeup, and still sporting his goatee and chest hair, you know this ain't the Navy Day Ball. The guy behind him looked like an Evil Purple Fu Manchu from the Captain Marvel comic book, sporting a sequined jock strap over his purple leotards. Women wore, well, anything, everything, and nearly nothing. Some were stunningly beautiful in elegant gowns. One young lady decided that the only thing she had that was purple was her underwear, so she sewed some embellishments on the front and back and just wore that. (She really should've worn something a bit more modest. Trust me.)

Inside the nightclub, the party was jammed, noisy, and hopping. The Terpsicorps dance troupe performed some of their numbers from their upcoming show. A batch of Asheville city cops in uniform roamed the crowds. In my younger days, this would've been a sign of trouble. But the crowd took it as a good sign and the police seemed to enjoy it as much as anybody else. I helped work the front door for a long while, checking wristbands for admittance, mostly because that's where I could people-watch the best. And the people-watching here was the best I've seen in a long, long time.

Forget the military balls. I'm going to the Arts Council balls!

Studio Stroll

This past weekend, the River District Artists (to which I belong) had our semi-annual Studio Stroll. We have over 90 artists in the group, and twice a year we open our studios to the public. It's always a popular event - we get people from all over the country who come in to see what we're doing. This weekend, I spoke with people from as far away as Boston, Ohio, and Oregon. I always try to have different stuff up on the walls every time, and this year I featured my courtroom drawings. Talking with visitors, both local and out-of-towners, is always fun.

The big issue this year, though, was that the number of visitors was way down. Artists in one studio in my building were counting, and it seems that our foot traffic was less than half that of last June. Sales were down even more. Now, I usually don't sell much during these Strolls, since my work is edgy, but there are several artists who normally sell a bunch, and this year they didn't. There are several possible reasons: weather (it rained most of Saturday), the Robert Plant/Allison Krauss concert Saturday night, and the Purple Ball for the Asheville Area Arts Council on Saturday night, all of which might have siphoned off visitors. Actually, I think the concert and the ball should've added visitors. I think the big culprit is the economy. High gas prices, skyrocketing food prices, declining stock market, the housing slump, and a tight job market are affecting what people do. And since art is a luxury item, it's one of the first things to get axed from people's budgets, and the last to come back. I saw it first-hand in the aftermath of 9/11, and it's much worse this year. Ouch!

Jackson

Jackson, my grandson, got his first haircut recently. He took it like the trooper he is. But then, he seems to have grown accustomed to having pretty women paying close attention to him.

Jacks and his mom, Julie.

Death, Trauma, and Art

Boy, that's a cheerful title for a post, isn't it? My line of thought today came about from another artist. I've swapped notes with her on the Art Calendar networking site recently. I saw that her art had gone through a fundamental change in the last few months and is now much stronger in composition, color, and, well, everything. Turns out that her mother passed away about four months ago, which has changed her whole approach to art. Essentially, she's working through the grieving process through paint.


Coming face-to-face with some of life's more brutal realities certainly does affect art. It did mine. My art is figurative and realistic - meaning I paint people so that you can recognize them. But that changed on 9/11. Suddenly what I was doing seemed so pointless, like piddling away my life when people were dying. I went in the studio that afternoon and literally threw paint at a canvas. The next day I started two abstract paintings. One was violent, the other peaceful.

Response 1

Response 2

Of course, you know that I didn't stay with this line of work. It's not my natural voice. But it was appropriate for my own personal response to 9/11. (As an aside, I've since noticed that I periodically come back to working in a yin/yang way like this ... I'll have one canvas going that has one feeling, and another canvas going that has an opposite feeling). Subsequent to these two paintings, I got more concerned with technical and formal art issues than with my initial gut reaction to the planes flying into buildings, and the abstract works petered out into pure junk. Eventually I worked my way back into figurative realistic painting. But many of the lessons I learned on these two canvases have stayed with me ... there are things in Warrior that I could never have painted if it wasn't for Response 1 and Response 2.

So now I'm wondering, for you artists out there in ALL media (not just visual arts, either), how has your work been affected by your own brush with death and trauma? Was there a big shift in what you do? If so, was it permanent or temporary? I'm really curious about this.

Navy Chiefs Care for their Own

I got this note in my email this morning. It was always said that "the Navy takes care of its own". Usually, "the Navy" doesn't mean the official organization, it means Navy members doing it on their own initiative. Here's a story that exemplifies all the best in Navy sailors.

This note has a lot of Navy-specific terms, so here's a quick translation.
- MCPON = Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy. He's the senior enlisted man in the service.
- Chief = one of the three senior enlisted ranks, which are Chief, Senior Chief, and Master Chief. Their culture is unlike anything in the Army or Air Force: they wear a different uniform than junior Sailors and have leadership responsibilities far beyond those of other services.
- AO1 = Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class. A senior enlisted man, one notch below a Chief.
- PACFLT = Pacific Fleet.
- CMDCM, FLTCM = Command Master Chief and Fleet Master Chief. The senior Master Chiefs in the command and the fleet.

Subject: Honorary Chief Presentation ICO AO1 David Eberhart

My fellow Chiefs, I wanted to share with you this picture as well as a short synopsis of how it came about. AO1 David Eberhart (pictured) is terminally ill with cancer. I was his Chief for his first tour on the USS INDEPENDENCE and even then his goal in the Navy was to be a Chief Petty Officer. His career, though very successful, has been interrupted with cancer treatment, periods of remission and finally with the news of being terminal.

He is currently assigned to MALS-24 at Kaneohe Bay. A few months ago he requested to see the MCPON. MCPON Campa happened to be on the island visiting and went to the hospital to see AO1. It was explained to him [MCPON] how badly AO1 wanted to be a Chief and that he even took the Chief's exam from the hospital during a three day period -- he didn't have the strength for more than an hour at a time. On his good days he would put on his uniform and make his way to work though the time there took a severe toll on him physically.

He did not make board as he was six-points shy. It was requested by PACFLT Chiefs that AO1 be made an Honorary Chief Petty Officer. We talked about it in Newport and MCPON was in concurrence. The intent was for MCPON himself to make the presentation.

News came this week that AO1 may not make it through the weekend as his health is rapidly declining. FLTCM Tom Howard along with a ton of Chiefs (including CMDCM Don Krampert from CPRW-2) from the area banded together to make this happen as quickly as possible. On Thursday, AO1 David Eberhart was designated an Honorary Chief Petty Officer.

I personally called and talked to Chief David Eberhart following his promotion Thursday and the excitement in his voice came with a strength and commitment that cannot be explained in words. He remembered well our time on the INDY but his short term memory is fading quickly.

Chief Eberhart's terminal prognosis remains listed in days. He is married with two children.

I tell you this story to remind you of the importance placed on us as Chief Petty Officers and the so many Sailors in our great Navy who look up to us and have the unwavering determination to be just like us. We have the responsibility to live up to that, to be the example, to walk the walk and talk the talk. It is truly an honor to be a United States Navy Chief Petty Officer and I am honored to call each of you - and Aviation Ordnanceman Chief Petty Officer David Eberhart -- shipmates.

Thank you for all you do.

V/r Aaron

Aaron A. Shipley
Sailor and Command Master Chief

Projects

Ever have one of those weeks where you just go from project to project to project, then back to the first and start all over again? That's been me for the past, oh, I dunno, several weeks.

Today I was trying to prep the studio for next weekend's Studio Stroll. It needs a MAJOR cleaning. We're talking serious cobwebs and dustbunnies that could eat a Volkswagon. I'm also trying to decide which pieces to have on the wall, which others need to be framed, where they'll go, and where all the other stuff that doesn't need to be seen will go. And order the frames, get the matboards, cut the mats, clean the glass, arrange the works, wash the couch cover, mop the floor, you name it. All this in a studio that's well over 90 degrees in the mid afternoon. YES, I'm whining! Sometimes it just seems overwhelming, and I get a bad case of "don't-care-itis". But in my head, I know that participating in the Stroll is a good thing for me in the long run. Which is what keeps me going.

Another big project that keeps demanding my time is the Arts Council. I'm on the Board of Directors of the Asheville Area Arts Council now. I got my arm twisted by an artist who's on the board, and finally agreed to join it. Then I started finding out (a) what a board member really does and (b) what's going on with our Council. We have a good organization and good people, but it's going to take a lot of work to get from where we are now to where we want to be. And here I thought that board members just met once in a while, drank coffee, and voted on stuff. NOT! Not if you want a functioning organization, that is. (If my tone sounds whiny again, it's just a carry-over from the first paragraph ... in all truthfulness, being on the BoD is going to be a good thing.)

The third big project is learning about grants. I've decided that galleries are probably not going to be my be-all and end-all. My best paintings have an in-your-face narrative quality that doesn't really go well in any commercial gallery I've seen yet. But they can be matched to the missions of some organizations. So right now I'm working on putting together a grant proposal that, if funded, would let me work with the Navy to do more works like Lament and Warrior. And I believe that I can get the funding. It's pretty exciting, really: I see more promise of doing the kind of works I want to do this way than I ever did while working with a gallery.

Oh, yeah, one more project: keeping the wife happy. That means mowing the lawn, getting a new washer (our old one isn't quite dead yet but is on physical therapy with no hope of getting better), painting the house, and giving in (eventually) to her demands for a dryer that matches the new washer.

I need a beer!

Gas Tank Blues

Janis and I were talking the other day about her commuting costs. She drives a 2000 Land Rover Discovery. We bought it new and have always loved it. Even though it weighs about as much as a Sherman tank (come to think of it, it drives like one, too), it's a high-quality vehicle that gives you a sense of invincibility. It'll take you right up the side of Mount Pisgah, road or no road, and let you wear a tuxedo to boot. And it's versatile enough that it can serve as a carriage for four, or can be loaded up with bushes and fertilizer from Reems Creek Nursery. Ours has been very reliable, too. And ever since new, it has gotten a steady 16.5 mpg on premium gas. Best of all, it's paid for.

Now with gas at $4+ per gallon, commuting to work is starting to get expensive. We were thinking of getting a Honda or something that gets around 30 mpg. Since the Land Rover is such a good car, we don't want to get rid of it; rather, we were looking at getting an older, sacrificial commuter scooter to lower our gas bill. Besides, the trade-in value for an 8-year-old Land Rover with 135K miles is in the toilet.

Then I got to wondering just how much the POS commuter car would save us. Big bucks, probably, since it should get over double the mileage and use cheaper regular gas to boot. So I ran some figures using current gas prices and discovered that we'd save - are you ready for this? - about $70 a month in gas. That's it. Subtract maintenance and insurance costs and we'd be lucky to break even, even if somebody gave us a car.

Oh, well. Nice thought. We'll just keep the Tank and drive it as little as possible.

Santa Fe Galleries

I'm on a trip to New Mexico and Colorado right now to visit my sister and her family. Had an interesting trip out here. I had to get from Charlotte, NC, to Albuquerque, and United Airlines routed me through Dulles .... now, no matter how I orient a map of the United States, I have a really hard time seeing Dulles as being in between Charlotte and Albuquerque. United thinks it is. But no matter, the flights went well. Actually, the flight from Dulles to Albuquerque was unbelievable: it was less than half filled, and many of us (myself included) had a whole row to ourselves! I was flabbergasted. That hasn't happened to me in maybe twenty years. And they didn't lose my bag or anything.

On Sunday, my sister and I went to Santa Fe so I could check out the gallery scene there. It's been fifteen years since my last Santa Fe visit but I knew there are a gazillion galleries there, so I did an internet screen to find the ones that would interest me. From maybe a hundred galleries, I found seven who had art that looked challenging or at least something more than eye candy. Two of them turned out to be closed on Sundays. Three were very disappointing. Two, though, had some good work.

One is Altitude Fine Art. They represent Geoffrey Laurence, a figurative painter with some very interesting works. Laurence paints in the Venetian Renaissance style: he does a very detailed grisaille underpainting ("grisaille", pronounced "grih-ZIE", is a black-and-white underpainting), then applies color in many layers until it has the depth and richness he wants. He's an exceptionally skilled draftsman and painter. More important to me, his compositions and narratives are intriguing. A painter who has had tremendous influence on me is Jerome Witkin, and Geoffrey Laurence is almost in Witkin's league ... I say "almost" because I think Witkin tackles heavier topics in a more direct manner. Still, it was great to see some first-rate painting.

The other good gallery was Turner Carroll Gallery. They have a variety of artists who are really top-notch. One is Hung Liu, a Chinese artist who does some really beautiful figurative paintings using acrylics and layers of clear acrylic resin. She has very dynamic brushwork that's constrained by the clear layers, which sets up an interesting tension for me. Another interesting artist is Georges Mazilu, a French painter whose work is very unusual ... imagine the Mona Lisa done by Hieronymous Bosch and you'll get an idea. He uses traditional painting techniques to come up with strange creatures from the unconscious, and he has tremendous skills. Very cool.

One of the litmus tests I apply to a gallery, along with "do they have any interesting art on the walls", is how they treat me. Every gallery had somebody who came up to me and initiated a conversation, which is good. And when they did, I always told them that I was an artist visiting town and was looking to see what was out there. And all of them except Altitude and Turner Carroll flunked that test: the moment I said I was an artist, they dropped me like a hot potato. "He's an artist, he's not going to buy anything, and he's going to ask us to look at his portfolio. Waste of time." I should note that every one of those galleries had second-rate (my opinion) art on the walls anyway. The Altitude gallerista remained politely friendly, if not overly enthusiastic, but she passed the test. Turner Carroll, though, is the Santa Fe gold standard. I had a very enjoyable conversation with Megan even after she found out I was an artist. Sure, she was keeping an eye on other people in the gallery, but she was very friendly, exceptionally knowledgeable about her artists in particular and art history in general, and she was stunningly good-looking to boot. Talk about hitting the trifecta! And no, I didn't ask her to review my portfolio ... I just signed up for their mailing list and put my web site on there for good measure. If they look, good; if not, that's fine too.

I noticed two interesting trends in Santa Fe. One is that several painters are using acrylic resin in layers. I mentioned Hung Liu above but there were others (none of whom had near her skill). The resin layers give the paintings a very 3D effect ... kinda like oil glazes on steroids. They also give the paintings a very glossy and smooth finish. When done right, it's an interesting effect. The other trend is that many artists are painting in a way that's similar to northern European Renaissance artists. They'll portray a quarter-length figure turned slightly, seated in front of a window (again, think Mona Lisa), only the figure may be an African American woman in dreadlocks in front of a New York City skyline. I'm sensitive to this because a number of my paintings over the past six years are also taken from Renaissance (and later) artworks, including Velasquez, Michelangelo, Manet, and Titian. I can't believe that I've actually been in the vanguard of a movement for once!

'Nuff for now. I'm on vacation and need to go visit with my sister.

Other Courtroom Artist Links

I was doing a bit of research this afternoon about courtroom artists. Okay, it may seem a bit after-the-fact, since the trial I was working finished over a week ago. But I learned a lot during that trial and am now able to look at other artists' courtroom work with new eyes. Sometimes I wonder "how the hell did they do that?". Other times it's "wow, that's pretty good". And in a few cases, I wonder how they can even post it on the web. (I haven't listed those artists here!) Still, it's all a learning experience.

Ironic Sans is a blogsite that has an interesting entry for March 4, 2008. He contacted seven courtroom artists about what they do when they're not doing court stuff. It's a good read with samples of all the artists' work, and it has links to all their web sites. They are:
- Mona Edwards. She was a fashion designer, which gives her drawings a spareness that adds to their punch.
- Steve Werblun. He has an excellent ability to get a likeness. Interesting (for me, anyway) is that he draws with markers. I dunno how that's done, but I'm determined to find out.
- Marilyn Church. She works in pastel on toned paper. I tried this approach and it did not, repeat did not, work for me, but she does it very well.
- Patrick Flynn. He also works in pastel on toned paper. His figures are much more simplified than Marilyn's, almost stylized.
- Dana Verkouteren. She lives and works in DC, covering mainly the Supreme Court but also other cases. Her drawings are much more finished than I tried to do, and she works in colored pencils.
- Paulette Frankl. Her works are very dramatic, actually leaning more toward fine art (particularly German expressionism) than typical courtroom illustration.
- Art Lien. Like Dana, he lives and works in Washington, DC. He has a wonderfully loose style while still finishing the works to a high standard. His website is really a blog, and an interesting read.

In addition to these artists, there are a number of others that I've found or been pointed to:
- Bill Robles. He has covered every major trial in LA since the Manson case. His drawings are exceptionally well done -of all the courtroom artists I've found, he's the one I like the most. His website doesn't have much information nor very many drawings - you'll have to do a Google search to find more.
- Mary Chaney. She covered trials in the LA area with excellent drawings and dramatic colorings. The website refers to her in the past tense, though, and I couldn't find any information about that.
- Susan Schary. Susan's in the Philadelphia area and works in pastel on full-sheet (18x22) toned paper. How she does that is beyond me - I work on quarter-sheet watercolor paper (about 11x15).
- Vicki Behringer. Another LA artist, Vicki has a good ability to capture a likeness. Like me, she works in watercolor.

Drawing Block

Last night we had our regular life drawing session in my studio, and I discovered that I have a drawing block. It's due to my recent stint as a courtroom artist. When I was drawing in the courtroom, I used a mechanical pencil. It worked great there: I could be loose and quick, erase any grievous errors, it worked well with watercolors, and it looked pretty good when the cameraman zoomed in on it. The problem? I got too used to working on small drawings with a mechanical pencil.

At our last two drawing sessions, I've tried to break away from the pencil and use charcoal and Conte crayons. But they need a different way of thinking, and I just can't get the ol' "charcoal brain" going. It's like trying to draw with my left hand: all that comes out is crap and there's no connection between my brain and the paper. I switched back to mechanical pencil and did some pretty decent drawings.

Guess I just have to bite the bullet, get out the big newsprint pad, and just keep drawing until it works again. It's frustrating, y'know? I figure I should be able to switch back and forth pretty quickly, but it isn't happening. To quote Charlie Brown: "Aaaarrrrggghhhh!!"

John McCain on Veteran's Benefits

I just read an interesting blog entry by Obsidian Wings that talked about John McCain's record on veterans' benefits. Since he's a retired Navy Captain and certified war hero, you'd think he'd be a pretty strong advocate for vets. You'd be wrong.

Courtroom Artist Follow-Up

Judge Thomas Ellis.

Witness on the stand.

A former video poker machine operator who had over $1.7M in cash hidden at his house.

The prosecuting attorneys, Richard Edwards and Corey Ellis.

The trial that I was working as a courtroom artist is over. Former sheriff Bobby Medford and former "captain" Guy Penland (he was really an unpaid volunteer) were convicted of ten counts each of charges related to skimming protection money from illegal video poker machines. It wasn't even a close decision: after two weeks of testimony, the jury only needed two hours to reach a decision.


From my end, this was a good gig. I was working for WLOS TV, the local Asheville station, as their courtroom artist. I was in the court every day, drawing the defendents, lawyers, prosecutors, judge, and witnesses. At 11 every morning, I'd scoot out to the van and hit the drawings with watercolors. This would give the cameraman time to shoot the pictures and edit them into the narrative for the noon news show. Then I'd go back inside and work until they broke for lunch. In the afternoon, I was out of there at 4 to prep the drawings for the afternoon show. Occasionally I played "cub reporter" and took notes for the real reporter who was prepping the broadcast or doing the live stand-up.


From the drawing perspective, there was a huge difference in the stuff I did in the first few days and the stuff I did in the last. The first ones look like amateur scribblings (at least, they do to me), while the last ones are at least acceptable. There's still a lot of room for improvement, of course, and the Big Guys in LA, New York, Chicago, or Atlanta probably have nothing to fear from me. But that's fine. This kind of work is fun and pays the bills.


I had a great time working with the WLOS reporters and the cameramen. They were all smart, personable, fun to work with, funny, and extremely professional. Asheville may be a small market, but it doesn't mean the news crews aren't pros.


I would like to do some more courtroom art, but there's not much demand for that here. WLOS only needs me about once every 12-18 months. I'll prep some brochures, samples, and letters and send 'em out to some of the other news stations in a reasonable radius: Knoxville, Chattanooga, Greenville-Spartanburg, Winston-Salem, and see if there's any interest out there. My paintings are still my #1 priority, but courtroom art might be a good sideline.


All the above sounds a bit mercenary, doesn't it? Well, it is. I had mixed personal feelings during the Medford trial. Bobby Medford is in terrible health and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the pain he was obviously in. And Guy Penland looks like everybody's doting, friendly grandfather. But listening to the testimony painted a very different picture: these guys had no compunction about shaking down crooks for "protection" money and violating the trust that the public had put in them. And if that wasn't bad enough, I heard some horrible stories about run-ins that other people had with Medford and his crew that have not been, and never will be, examined by the public. So good riddance, Bobby and Guy.

Adventures with a Kodak Printer

A few days ago, my crappy old Dell printer began acting up and I thought it was about time to replace it. Sams Club had Kodak all-in-one printers for $89. These things were supposed to print photos equal to commercial labs as well as regular letters, and also scan, fax, and copy. And their ink refills were mondo cheap. Sounded cool to me, and Kodak is a big name, and the price is unbeatable, so you can't go wrong, can you?

You bet your ass you can.

I lugged it home and installed it Friday night. The software bundle is huge and takes a long time to run just from the CD. Then I had to download and install the latest version from the Kodak site, which over my DSL line took an hour. Made a couple of test 4x6 photos and documents and they really looked good. I'm a happy man. So then I launched Microsoft Outlook to get to work. Uh oh. Outlook got about halfway through the launch and crashed bigger than a jet plane. I tried a few things and it still crashed. Uninstalled the Kodak software and it did it again. Ran the System Restore utility to bring the computer back to where it was before it all started, and Outlook ran just fine. So here I am, right back at the beginning, after several hours of mostly waiting for software to download or run or whatever. I'm not a happy man.

This went on for the next 24 hours. I installed the software several different ways. I called Kodak's tech support twice. I rebooted a dozen times. I installed, I uninstalled, I ran System Restore, I installed several Microsoft upgrades, all to no avail. The Kodak software killed Outlook every time. Finally the Kodak tech rep (a really nice guy in El Salvador) said that it was a Microsoft problem, not Kodak, and there was nothing more they could do.

Well, there was sure as hell something I could do. I uninstalled the Kodak software, ran System Restore one last time, then packed everything back up in the box and took it back to Sam's. Sorry, Kodak, but in a battle between you and Microsoft, Microsoft wins. Everything else on my computer works with Windows, so if your stuff doesn't, that's your bad. I did some Google searches while trying to find more information, and found a lot of people with very very bad things to say about Kodak's software, so I'm not alone. The sad part is that the photos that actually come out are really good and really cheap.

On a related note, during this process I installed Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. And immediately uninstalled it. My old system is slow in booting up, but SP 3 bogged it down like a Kia pulling a freight train.

Lessons learned:
1. Stay away from Kodak printers until they learn how to do software right.
2. Stay away from Windows XP SP3.
3. When this computer finally dies, I'm replacing it with a Mac.

George Bush Has Pissed Me Off Again

Our dickhead-in-chief has done it again. In a speech to the Israeli Knesset, he essentially called Obama and the Democrats "appeasers", saying that it's a "foolish delusion" to think you can negotiate with terrorists. This was in reference to Obama's statement some time ago (reiterated on his web site) that he favors "tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions, and is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe."

Okay, let's look at what The Dickhead has done now:
1. Denounced all those who favor sitting down with our enemies to negotiate solutions. The White House staff confirmed that these remarks were targeted against Obama, but they also include former President (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and every President and administration who served during the Cold War. Can you imagine what might have happened if Dickhead was Prez during that time? Good God, those few of us who might still be alive now would be glowing green from all the nuclear fallout floating around. Actually talking with the Soviets was what saved us from nuclear annihilation, not cowboy bluster and posturing. Especially from somebody who never really served.
2. That's bad enough, but to stand up in front of a foreign government and make a complete ass out of himself is frickin' embarrassing.
3. And to throw partisan politics into a foreign presentation is worse.

I could go on, but just thinking about this asshole gets my blood boiling. What a complete, utter, and contemptuous failure he is. I will be so glad when January 20, 2009 arrives.

Sigh. I was going to talk about other things, like my experience with the Medford trial and being a courtroom artist and posting some pictures, until Bush opened his yap and I had to vent. Sorry. I'll try to be more cheerful next time.

Behind the Courtroom Scenes

This past week has been a stinker. I've been going non-stop from early morning to rack time and haven't been able to post any blogs ... or do laundry, or cut the grass, clean the car, or almost anything else. So today I'm in catch-up mode.

I've got some more courtroom drawings to post, but I've gotta get 'em out of my camera first, so they'll come later. Thought I'd share some impressions from a week in the courtroom.

First, it's not at all like Law & Order. No big surprises, no theatrics, no stomping around, no yelling (well, one time when there was an old guy who was hard of hearing, so the attorneys literally had to stand next to him and slowly shout their questions ... quite amusing, but not L&O stuff). All the attorneys for both sides know pretty much exactly what the others are going to ask. It's really a matter of "here's one side, here's the other, now you in the jury make your decision".

Another discovery for me: big issues can hide in small comments. Again, in L&O, key facts are emphasized with much over-acting. In real life, they can come out in just a bland reading of a list. The prosecutors had a witness on the stand on Day 2 asking him what various markings on a list meant, and in a quiet matter-of-fact tone he implicated two local sheriffs in taking money from illegal video poker machine operations. And neither set of attorneys made a big deal of it. Meanwhile, I'm sitting back there in the second row thinking "wait a minute, did I just hear what I think I heard??" You really have to pay attention - you snooze, you lose.

Our judge, Thomas Ellis is quite interesting. See his Wikipedia entry here. He's a high-profile guy brought in from the DC area just for this trial. He took charge of his courtroom from the very first minute. Judge Ellis much more intrusive into questioning than anything you've seen on TV (with the exception of Judge Judy, who's just damn intrusive, period). If he doesn't like an attorney's question, he'll jump in and rephrase it, or ask his own questions if the attorney isn't covering something he thinks should be covered. Sometimes he looks like he's asleep, then all of a sudden he'll pounce on a comment or question from an attorney. The "sleep" look is deceptive: he's really concentrating his rather formidable intellect on the matter at hand. But he's also interested in getting a fair trial. We already know his thoughts on whether the defendents are guilty or innocent, but he goes to extreme lengths to make sure the jury doesn't. All his personal opinions are discussed outside the jury's hearing.

One of the things that this case has pounded home to me is just how fair our legal system is. Yes, it's big and convoluted, but it's a system of laws and court decisions that have been carefully crafted over two hundred years, mostly by people who put sound decisions above all. There aren't any arbitrary decisions allowed ... if anything is questionable, it can be appealed or the case can even be retried, and none of them want that. Nope, our system is, especially in this particular case, a good system being correctly used by some very smart and dedicated people.

As a courtroom artist, I'm just a small wienie in this story. I get there a few minutes early and take a seat in the second row on the right side (the first row is reserved for attorneys and others involved). This way I can get the best look at the witness stand, judge, and defense attorneys. As for the prosecutors, it seems no matter where I sit, all I get are their backs, so I try to work on them during breaks.

I only take in a small drawing board, a small stack of hot-pressed watercolor paper, my drawing tools (a mechanical pencil with a very soft lead and also a kneaded eraser), and a small sketch pad for notes. During the proceedings, I work on getting a decent drawing. I try to get the best likeness possible, while also trying to breathe some life into the figures by tilting the heads, having them look this way or that, lean on an arm, whatever. Sometimes I'll just focus on one large figure, sometimes two or three. When I do a "scene", I'll compress the key elements. For example, in reality the witness stand is way over to the right while the defense table is way over to the left, the judge is in the middle, and the flag is way back in the background. When I draw them, I'll cram 'em all together. This is the only way to get all the important stuff recognizably visible.

At 11 a.m., I leave, even if something's still happening. I head out to the TV station's van and break out my watercolors. I'll normally have two or three drawings going, and will work fast on getting the color laid in. In the past, I've used pastels (way too messy and complicated) and watercolor pencils (too uncontrollable and deceptive). Regular watercolors work best for me. I need to have the drawings done by 11:30 so that the cameraman can shoot them and then splice all the images together with the reporter's narrative for the noon news show. Then it's back into the courtroom until the lunch break. In the afternoon, it's the same routine, and I have to get back to the TV van about 4 pm so we can be ready for the evening news.

The reporter and I work closely on what we're going to cover. Not every witness needs to be mentioned; sometimes we don't know that until after the fact. So I have to draw every witness and then we determine which ones to focus on back at the van. We also compare notes on what we heard to make sure we're getting our story straight.

I discovered last night that one of our cameramen, Joe Avery, has his own blog, which you can see here. He wrote about his experience of working with me and included a couple of photos. Well, let me tell you, these cameramen are an amazing bunch. They don't just stand around and shoot video all day. They're the ones that put the piece together. The reporter writes up the story and records the audio. The cameraman takes the audio and matches up all the different video shots to the appropriate sections. There may be a dozen different shots. So he's playing his equipment like a madman, swapping tapes in and out, running the story over and over, pounding buttons, and looking remarkably like a mad scientist in a Grade B movie dungeon. Except he's for real. Once the story's done, he and the reporter get ready and do the live stand-up intro and closing for the evening news. Cool stuff, a lot of fun to watch, and even more fun to be a part of.

More Courtroom Art

Defense attorneys cross-examining a witness.

These are the DA's case files ... all eight crates of them ...

The defendents, former Captain Guy Penland (left) and former Sheriff Bobby Medford (right).

The DA's questioning a witness.