NEW SHOPPING TREND

After the Stock Market results this year, a major new shopping center is emerging....

MCDONALDS NOTES

McDonalds Notes

My psychologist suggested I get more involved in life. I drove around the city the next day trying to grasp the concept, looking both right and left, not just down the road. Hungry, I stopped at a McDonalds, sitting at a table with my bacon and egg something. Life began to unfold. A group of elderly men sat in front of me, about 5 of them. They seemed settled with life, chatting about whatever old people do. There was one empty chair. Each time the door to the restaurant opened, they all turned and looked. A member of the flock was missing.

In the far corner of the restaurant, a woman with long legs, young, and in-shape sat. Three uncontrollable children swirled about her. Like an orchestra leader, she somehow kept them partially in place. I noticed a star tattoo on her leg and when she bent toward one of the children to wipe off his mouth, another tattoo on her back. I wondered if she had got all the things she wanted in life or if there was still wildness there.

A middle-aged man sat a few chairs up from her, his remaining hair swept back. He moved his hand over his forehead and back through his hair. He looked interesting except for the Wal-Mart shirt with the pictures of collectible cars on it. His burger sat in front of him half eaten. He was worried about something. Maybe like I, he wondered where he left the rest of life.

David Young

AWAY FROM THE BRIGHT LIGHTS

INTO THE DESERT NIGHT

Into a Desert Night from David Young on Vimeo.

ANOTHER DAY AT THE SHOP

                              From the "Small Buildings" series  SFM ©  www.studiofour.com

BEAUTY LEFT ALONE

“Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained in it.” Arthur Ericson

You can sometimes feel the many chapters a small building has lived. Some now left alone but still beautiful in their own way….

From the "Small Building Series" - SFM ©

"A PORTLAND STAR"

ART STORE RENDERINGS

I spend hours in art stores, wandering the isles, looking at the different products and imagining what I could create. Often art stores display work by their clients or employees. Sometimes you can also find interesting accidental art. Such was the case recently. Below a neatly organized case of color markers were try out pads. Test marks filled the pads. Who did these, I wondered? Was it an emerging or famous artist, a student or a child? It was a collaboration of many who did not know or meet each other. Random acts that somehow had become refreshing found art.  Unbounded marks free of pressure to create great things. They were all beginnings. Some would take the markers home and make great art, other doodles of wild imagination or commercial renderings. Below are photographs of the test pads. They reminded me of what Picasso’s once said,  “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

MARIE EVE

BIG SUSHI THOUGHTS

CHARACTERS IN THE CORNER

Lives are often lived out in quiet moments of thought or plotting of the next move. All done in the corners of our being...

BLACK CLIFFS WANDERING

MONDAY MORNING

BLUE WATER BRIDGE

STRONG MAN

CITY FACES

We walk by buildings everyday. Some torn and worn, others full of life. They all are City Faces and have stories to tell about our lives ....

"ISN'T IT GRAND"

One of the oddest streets in the Southwest is Grand Avenue in Phoenix. William Murphy in 1888 faced grave problems. He started a sugar beet factory with investor money from back east. It quickly failed. The investors wanted their money back. Cash poor but land rick, Murphy needed a way to develop his land holdings and keep unhappy investors at bay. His solution, build a diagonal road into the desert from downtown Phoenix to his property. It would be a leap of faith, a great vision, one that would tie the future of the valley together. Murphy thought, why not call it "Grand Avenue." His vision of a palm tree lined road with luxury development on each side never came true. It remains a full of quirkiness and rawness that have a strange appeal. The arts community flourishes along part of Grand and low profile buildings see new enterprises come and go. Trailer courts and modest motels are filled with the hopeful. Whatever you feel about Grand Avenue, you cannot ignore the spirit of the people along its way, the promise still alive and the art of its being there.