Mom Had a Stroke... I'm back now

My mother suffered a stroke 3 months ago and put me into serious depression. Never fear. I'm back now and making art bigger and better than ever.

Graduate Schools here I come.

I love Fred Mitchell. He's a good guy.

Goddamn it! It's everywhere.

Shit!

Always

I am always looking racism in the face. Specifically I am looking old
racism in the face. It's noting new. Nothing at all is new.

Nigger "I Hate Catchup"

I got this desire to make art while at lunch. So I'm using the
substance I dislike to make an art piece. Why the fuck not? :-)

Susan Sontag says in her book, On Photography, that "time eventually
positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of
art". I love that statement.

I view the statement as a particular interest point. For me I hope to
create idea and feeling powerful images/art/photographs/art. This word
for me has been where my life is the last 10 years.

Interesting :-)

I find this interesting. The pattern has a nice balance and the color
tones in the tile produce a super flat and even surface. Texture isn't
much but it is there.

It's just a floor though.

Plush Safe He Think

"Jimmy Best..." 1981

Sweet Sweetback Badass Song! This piece makes me want to watch that
movie again! I can't wait to buy more spray paint! Boom the world!
(That is code for tagging which is code for graffiti. Hahaha. :-)

Jean-Michel Basquiat (Mixed Media Heaven)

I love this photo piece/collage. It's called "Untitled (We have
decided...)". This piece is the fucking boss shit that makes Basquiat
such a force in the art world.

The piece keeps you excited because it presents a nice array of
messages. Using acrylic, blood, ink, and paper collage on paper, the
viewer is presented with a surreal effect.

Not my favorite piece by far but I sure do enjoy this one over most of
the half-ass shit I see lately. I just don't "feel" most art today. I
think our generation needs an update. :-)

I Would Love to Participate in This!

E-mail

Call for Artists for "BUST ED II" Femina Potens is holding a call for artist submissions for our annual visual art exhibition 'Bust ED'.  This show honors breast cancer awareness month addressing breast health. 'Bust ED' celebrates the lovely and erotic nature of the bosom, while reminding everyone of the way breast cancer affects our lives. This October 2009, Femina Potens will be hosting the second annual 'Bust ED II'.  We are asking for submissions from artists to take part in this powerful show.  If you have  artwork or a project proposal inspired by the breast please contact us. Apply by sending: - bio - artists statement, or project proposal - 5 jpg images to Michelle Rothman at fpvisual@gmail.com Thank you, we look forward to viewing your submissions. www.feminapotens.org

I am confused about my sexuality anyway!

Awww to be young and sexually confused. What I'm not confused about is my love for female breasts. I mean... I do have a mom... and I live her dear. :-)

Jon Hicks

Sent from my iPhone

Love

Jon isn't stressing and says: "if love be rough with you, be rough
with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down". -
Mercutio. Damn right! :-).

It wouldn't hurt to know where God wants me to be emotionally with
women. If anything I wish there was an easier way to engage in love.
Oh well.

That's life.

Jon Hicks

Sent from my iPhone

4th of July! Obama/Thomas Jefferson love child!

Proud to be American! Afro-American! Hell yeah! I'm an Obama and
Thomas Jefferson love child! Think about it. New art piece on that
note! Holla!

And Yes... I Totally Have A Foot/Toes Fetish! :-)

These lovely toes belong to my newly regained friend... the beautiful
Megan. I think she is one of my favorite models, but Jessica is still
my top pick.

This picture, and many more of Megan, were taken a few years ago (2
years). It was back when I was wrapping people all the time in plastic
wrap. Yes, I like bondage too... but I believe the 20 or more models I
photographed wrapped in plastic were a message and statement about how
I felt before I started speaking up more. I just really like this
picture though... it reminds me of where I came from visually.

We are forever a product of our particular generation.

Sonja Would Like This Subject

I think I just really wanted to experiment with natural and artificial
light sources outside. I blame that interests on Sonja. And thankfully
she has made me more interested in reflections in photographs so I am
pursuing more windows. Yay!

Trying My Hand at Subjects Sonja Likes

I couldn't sleep so I just grabbed my camera and went out shooting
this morning. It was like 4:30 in the morning. I am too tired to put
actual pics up so here are some "really" funny pics from my shitty
shitty iPhone. lol

Nas-Ether(Jay-z Diss)

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inyoiKjVe0I

Jon Hicks

Sent from my iPhone

Rings and Dings!

Cherish youth!

Jesus! Crazyness!

More Sontag and Sushi! :-)

I Love Art!

Susan Sontag and Sushi!!!!!

Cookies! Damn it! Nothing beats a fine book, Susan Sontag's 'On Photography', and fine sushi (snow crab, cream cheese and spices wrapped in seaweed/rice)!

I am thoroughly enjoying 'On Photography' and I feel convienced that I love more conceptual based 'fine' art than more skilled based art. I mean I agree with the theories on the purity of flatness that are hammered home in 'The Painted Word', and will work those ideas into my photography projects, but I also enjoy just good old "relation-based" art work... art that grabs you!

Art should relate to how we view and experience the human condition right? I believe that to succeed I must grasp that idea better and pull it by the balls until I get something. (I might like someone to do that to me... :-)).

Hell if I know though. I am confused about so much right now. I love Jessica Patmon. She's such an amazing woman. She speaks with such heavenly honesty and confidence. I really enjoy that. She's such a damn good artist too. She loves the outdoors and children. She even paints like a true champion... she's damn damn damn good. I even feel rather weak in the knees around her... while feelings highly capable. Capable of what one might ask. Anything... I feel like I can do anything when she is around. I really look up to her too. She wants to be a high school art teacher, but I feel God is going to do far more than that with her.

Anyway... I tend to ramble when I really like a person. I am just going to keep producing work. I am aware that people like my art work and that I have been in Birmingham Artwalk and The Wonderland show... and even recieved top honors in the last student show (which I got all three of my pieces in for... RARE) but I am not satisfied! I want to connect with the world. I need to help it fix it's problems and I want to show it a world without borders or limits. I want I want I need I need.

Jon Hicks

Sent from my iPhone

Tom Wolfe on the 'Bergs'

Awesome chapter. My second favorite chapter! I just read it again for
fun. :-)

Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word" is AWESOME!

Flatness is the Word and the Word was God! This chapter 4 in his book
has changed the way I view painting. I understand now (in a realistic
sense) how "-ism" related art works. It's truely amazing how this book
breaks down the art world of painting and hell the art world period.
It's great. And the way he ends the book with the reader thinking
about being in Plato's cave sets the wonderful stage for Susan
Sontag's views and comments on photography.

In my opinion, photography is the new painting. And honestly
photography is flatness glorified... if you like cultureburg that
is. :-)

A wonderful place to see Art.

Here is a wonderful place to see art shows and beautiful pieces. This
is right smack in downtown Nashville. I love me some Nashville, TN.
It's a great drive from Birmingham and like a second home for me.

And It All Starts With A Song

As I enter into expressing my views publicly,  specifically because of my friend and fellow photographer Fred Mitchell, the first thing I am reminded of is the song I'm On A Boat. It makes me think of slavery and every time I hear it... I hear in my head: "I'm on a boat, (a slave boat), I'm on a boat, (a slave boat), everybody look at me 'cause I'm standing on a boat. Thankfully when I sing it aloud, like I hear it in my head, my friends and my roommate laugh and sing along. Wait... should I really be thankful for that since it's not exactly "Politically Correct"? I'm sure Hank Willis Thomas might find it amusing at least for a while though. Well, he would probably turn it into a "mass market" art project about black men being exploited by "white people", but he might laugh a little.