“Throb and Swagger- The Sounds of Newark” #10 10.5″x16.5″ Canson Arches Aquarelle Rag Paper, Enhanced Giclée Archival Print Edition 1/1 Printed for the Newark Public Library
This work is about the vitality, creativity and resilience of Newark New Jersey. My print captures the dynamic energy of the city.
In the spring of 2016, I was invited by Matthew Gosser, (curator and teacher at NJIT’s College of Architecture and Design, involved with the historic preservation of many of Newark’s landmark buildings,) to create art based on my personal experience with the Queen of Angels, a historic church on Belmont Avenue, now Irving Turner Blvd.
I spent a couple hours exploring what was a nearly completely demolished church, with most of my time seated and listening to the ambient sounds of the community. I took notes and made sketches from overheard conversations of passersby, and the ambient sounds from traffic, airplanes and nature. These sounds deeply influenced my emotional response and drawing, and was the basis for this work of art
I rarely visit at the many Shopping Malls in Northern New Jersey where I live. The enormous density of humans I encounter, and the predictability of what is available for sale does not appeal to me. I do however, as necessary, take advantage of the value of household and kitchen goods sold at the large box store, Costco. This past weekend I visited the largest of these box stores in the region. The drawing here poetically represents hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of humans I encountered. As a Synesthete, my senses are particularly sensitive and exhausted by an afternoon in this environment.
