Welcome to Radio Relay Towers. This blog will have news, pictures and commentary from my current work. The blog will operate like an anthology with a few ongoing stories. The Naked Boy and The Green Man of Portland will be the two ongoing comics. Also, look for upcoming news of the installation of the public art piece based on The Green Man of Portland.
The Naked Boy
The Naked Boy is spit out of the mouth of a whale. The Naked Boy is given the mission to follow the railroad west to kill the Great Bear. The moment the Naked Boy hits the beach, he is seen as a harbinger of all this doom. He is pursued by a cavalry as well as a contingent of animals. There are two narrative voices throughout the story. The first is the omniscient narrator, the poet. This voice uses the device of epic, heroic poetry. The second is Preacher Smith, a syndicated talk radio preacher. Preacher Smith is never seen, he broadcasts locally from everywhere the Naked Boy finds himself. Preacher Smith is the main agitator against the Naked Boy.
The Green Man of Portland
Since Portland’s founding, sightings of small green archers have been reported throughout the city. Very few documents exist to confirm these rumors. Along with the archers, a celestial stag, a phantom building and a huge tree have been spotted, time-to-time, throughout Old Portland. Whenever the archer hits someone, her vision changes. An aura of flowers grows from the heads of passersby. Suddenly a building called “The Greenwood” is visible where there was no building before. A giant tree larger than any buildings in town towers over the city. On certain nights, a great white celestial stag is spied in the skies over Portland. The Green Man's arrows pierce the secret history of Portland.
I'm an artist and writer. I makes site-specific wall drawings, paintings, comics and sculpture to tell stories that meditate on myth in the American psyche. My sculpture and drawings have been shown nationally including MASS MoCA, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, The Albuquerque Art Museum, Contemporary Craft Gallery, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and The Art Gym at Marylhurst University. My illustration and comic work has appeared in Tin House Magazine and the self-published titles, Radio Relay Towers, The Green Man of B Street and We Are on Our Mind (with C.Hollow). My writing has appeared in Parabola, Artweek, ARTnews, The Organ, The Bear Deluxe, Emily Dickinson Award Anthology, Ceramics Monthly, Ceramics: Technical and Ceramics: Art and Perception. My work has been reviewed by The New York Times, The Village Voice, New York Press, The Albany Times Union, The Oregonian, Sculpture Magazine, Art Papers, Artweek, The Willamette Week and the Portland Mercury.
I teach at Pacific Northwest College of Art.