JD Frank

Art in the Garden, a Painting Drawing, and Printmaking show August 5th 6-9pm

2011-07-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

Come check a show I am having in Ashland Oregon, August 5th (First Friday) from 6-9pm. The info is repetitively written below!!! Check the blog link, all the pictures at the show will be listed beforehand on the blog especially created for the show.

Art in the Garden:

A show of Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Joel Frank

August 5th (First Friday) 6-9pm
on the corner of 5th and C street in downtown
Ashland at Dave S. and Jan J. Garden.
Please come, enjoy yourself, walk around, have a glass of wine, and be sure
to thank our gracious hosts, Dave and Jan.

See the images that will be exhibited, sample prices, and more information at:
www.artinthegardenashland.blogspot.com

Siena, Italia : My favorite Italian City

2011-05-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

View of the Palazzo Pubblico and the campanile, Torre del Mangia. It was a kick ass day. The foggy, misty feel was nice, often I like that over bright blue-bird days.

The folks, we were jammin' around Italy together for a bit before they went home and I went on to the rest of Europe.

Another shot of the main piazza and beyond. I like the colour of this one. The reddish-sienna colour of the bricks against the blue-purple of the distance.

Fun painting fact: The pigment colour Raw Sienna, terra di Siena, has been used as a pigment since prehistoric times although this yellow iron oxide pigment, basically yellow dirt, didn't appear in painting treatises until the second half of the 18th century. There are other pigments named after areas in Italy, Naples Yellow (Obviously earth pigment mined from Naples, Napoli), Raw Umber a pigment much darker than Raw Sienna (From Umbria, a region of Italy bordering with Tuscany where Siena is.) All of these pigment can be heat treated to change the hue. Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, never heard of a burnt Naples Yellow but people stick fire to everything so I'm sure there's been one out there. Generally "burning" a pigment seems to impart a reddish tint.

Artsy fartsy pic. Not my favorite but kinda shows the little courtyards that sprung up between houses.

Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina : Stari Most (Old Bridge)

2011-05-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Mostar "the bridge keepers(mostari)" is a super beautiful city in the southeast part of Bosnia. This area of the world has so much history that I won't go too much into it. The bridge was built in the 16th Century during a period of Ottoman rule. It Crosses the Neretva River. The bridge stood for 427 years until November 9th 1993 when it was bombed by Croatia in the Croat-Bosniak Wars. This version of the rebuilt bridge was completed and opened in July of 2004.

Bosnia has always been a pinnacle region of the Balkans. The area of Herzegovina is the connecting region between the Turkish East and the Austrian West. Apropriate then is an amazing cultural meeting ground of Islamic Middle eastern culture and that of Western Europe. The people of this region are largely Muslim and have been pretty well bullied for it. Caught in between the Ragin' Cajun ways of Orthadox Serbia, and Roman Catholic Croatia.

Note: A really good book about the region is "Hearts Grown Brutal" by Roger Cohen. Mostly about Sarajevo but talks about the whole Balkan region from Austor-hungarian and Ottoman-Turk days to the rise and fall of Tito's Yugoslavia.

But this bridge itself is testament to the turmoil of the region. The bridge served as key point for whichever empire was in control of the region. As up stream, the Neretva River progresses the mountains which form deep gorge that's nearly impassible.

I was here in the fall so it was starting to get kinda chilly but not bad. local kids will jump off the bridge in the dead middle of winter with snow on the ground from the bridge into the river for money from tourists.

These pics are of my good friend Bojana. We were roommates in Berlin when I was there for language school in 09'. She's from Serbia but went to Germany for a while in 92' to get away from the U.S.-NATO airstrikes on Belgrade, her home town. So when I went to Eastern Europe, she came along and did a lot of the translating for us while romping around. Everybody in Ex-Yugoslavia, speaks a variation of Serbo-Croation except the Albanians. She's super awesome. We had the best time. These photos are funny cus while in Bosnia she refused to smile for any photos cus of what historically 'her country' had done to this region. It was the Croatians on this particular occasion that took out the bridge but she still didn't want to smile cus a lot of the atrocities were perpetrated by the Serbians.

I thought of what my face would do were I in devastated regions of Vietnam or Iraq or Afganistan... but you know what, her and I didn't drop any bombs and we all have to move forward. So smile and be kind I guess. I protested the recent wars, I marched on D.C. and Langley but a lot of good that did. The sentiment was there but not a lot else. But here an American and a Serbian, former post-war 'enemies' are smiling and having a great time. So smile and laugh I guess, can't think of a better remedy to an awkward situation. So I made her smile on this last one and snuck in the photo. And look at the difference, it's the end result to an infomercial, before the laughter-z3200 product was applied and after. I think the bridge got brighter when she smiled too. Love you Bojani-Wani!!!

Tomato Plants, W and W/out Myco-Power: Mycorrhizal Applications Inc.

2011-05-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

This image Shows the spectrum of influence the Mycorrhizal hyphae have on getting nutrients that are normally out of reach for a plant depending exclusively on it's own root system. The lettered and coloured balls underground and in the ground water represent individual micro-nutrients found in healthy soils. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, etc. The roots (in red) show the reach of a normal root system and the white strands and webs show the way the hyphae branch out into smaller cracks and deeper places in the soil to get to the nutrients. Mycorrhizal Applications Inc.

Here is the comparison img. Without the hyphae, you can see the plant is at a real disadvantage, lacking the reach and webs that help the plant retain moisture even during times of drought. Adding this stuff to your garden veggies or plants in general make it go NUTS, my mom has some strawberries that are busting out the walls YO! Poppy flowers, haven't bloomed yet, but there are buds out the wazoo. Hey, come to think of it, what's G-money doing with all them poppies hmmmm? Cookin' that heron' no doubt!! GO G-money gettin' them dollar dollar bills yall!!

Graphic Image I did of a plant root and fungi: Mycorrhizal Applicaitons Inc:

2011-05-15T22:40:00.000-07:00

I do graphic design. I have the amazing fortune of working for amazing people and an amazing company, they're basically family I grew up with in southern Oregon. Mycorrhizal Applications Inc., is a company producing mycorrhizal fungi which naturally form a symbiotic relationship with a plants root system to help the plant access nutrients in the soil. In return, the plant produces the sugars that the fungi needs to survive. An ancient relationship. The result is healthier plants with greater yield achieved without the use of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides which are reeking havoc on the ecology of our top soils and agricultural system. The company, and the people, are changing the world.

This is a design I did about a month ago to illustrate the points of interaction between the fungi and the root. The bottom right image is the final version. The one above I liked just cus the cross-sectioned spore sac. The image is highly stylized. That's just how I roll, but it's goal is to explain in layman's terms concepts of mycorrhizae that occur under the ground (I am one of the laymen myself).

A - The Mycilium, the mycorrhizal filaments that branch out from the plant root reaching far into the soil and creating an underground web to capture and retain water, hydrating the plant even into periods of drought. They also access nutrients in hard to reach cracks and pores in the soil, far out of the normal reach of bald roots.

B - Spore sacs, the mycorrhizae spread and multiply by distributing spores in the soil.

C - Arbuscules, they are hyphae within the root. Their function I couldn't explain so I won't muff it up by B.S.ing. They are cool looking is what I know.

Baby Royalty (This is new work I haven't shown before)

2011-05-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

I found these two super creepy little babies at Fred Meyer a while back. Thought they were paint worthy. I made up some little narrative in my head about the King and Queen of baby-doll land, so I gave'm a little staff and positioned their little hat/cape thingys accordingly. Actually I think the front one is supposed to be the girl of the two, the queen, going on the pink?? I guess in baby-doll land queens can go topless, hmmm who knew? So this is royalty, I guess that makes me the court painter, suck on that Velásquez! (your mind does strange things when you work graveyard shift 10pm-8am for too long) Unfortunately when I broke my foot, I came back to my apartment and it had massive water damage so I had to move out. The "still-life" of these two babies had to be moved. So I never got to finish this painting. But in my opinion, just as well. I like it decent enough the way it is. If I'm ever feeling like the the baby-doll world is in need of new monarchy I'll paint another on this same theme. The dolls themselves are that enticing. Yikes, get a life Joel. (Click on the pictures if you wanna see'em close up, kinda cool actually)

Claude Vonstroke - Deep Throat

2011-05-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

Yes Please!! Just Yes, Yes, and more Yes to that crap-nasty beat and the funky blue chicken! Headphones on and bump'itty bump it!! Thank god for hot German girls, the poor little boys of the world would never get their laundry done.

Photo of the day: Taken at the National Water Displacement Testing Facility

2011-05-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

I'm bed ridden today. This is the result. Finding amazing, inspirational photos on the internet. Go get yours Buddy!! Bam!! Love'n it.

The Vineyard and Barn: An Iron-Gall Ink Drawing

2011-05-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

A quick wash drawing of my PO's Vineyard and Barn. Side note about it, it's all from hand made materials. The paper was made for the Thomas Jefferson Collection of prints at the Library of Congress. It had too much red fiber so they tossed it. It was graciously given to me by a friend who works there, she made a sweet, sweet ass drawing book out this paper as a graduation gift. Love you Adrienne! Then the same friend helped me concoct Iron-gall Ink, using Tannic Acid, Gum Arabic, a chemical I forget (but have written down) and water.

Random Image of the day: Jared "The Face"

2011-05-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

I did this drawing about a year ago or so...can't remember, it's dated but can't read it. Good thing I dated it. I've been laying in bed all day with the broken foot thing so I figured since I'm not up to making new work right now I'd find a funny random older piece and post it.
My buddy Jared can make the best-haggardest fucking face and this is it. We had a good time making this drawing, it was hilarious cus he couldn't hold that mug very long, so he'd make the face I'd draw like a madman, then break. Then he'd make the face again and I'd get a few more lines in. By the end his face muscles were sore and he could barely make any face at all. Good man.

Lower Table Rock-Medford Oregon

2011-05-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

This was a quick hour and a quarter plein-air shot from my car. Nearish to where my parents live. Out and about two days before my surgery. Trying to keep the hand moving between doctor visits.

Blown: The feeling after surgery #2...

2011-05-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

Charles Bukowski- The Laughing Heart

2011-05-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

This poem-post hopefully is the conclusion to my orthopedic adventure. We have a choice to build off these experiences, or let them bend us over. And I for one am not takin' it in the pooper!

Charles Bukowski -The Laughing Heart
"Your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness. Be on the watch. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. take them. You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, Sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you."

Surgery Round 2! Fight bitch!!

2011-05-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

Surgery went down yesterday, it was a long haul. At the hospital for 9 hours. Only two of that
was surgery. I won't bitch cus from what I can tell thus far the outcome is helping already.

Yes, well, you know with me nothing comes off easy. This pic shows a wee little complication that arose in surgery2. The bent screw broke off inside my heel bone during removal. Doc rallied and got the piece out with a kebab skewer, whatever works yo, I'm game.

OK, this is the final image. One, nice, SHORT, fatty fat screw holdin' my shizzle together without tearing up my anatomy. All the dust on the right of the screw is metal shards hanging out in the worm hole where the bent, then broken screw got skewered out. Apparently it was a battle.

Vids and X-rays Showing the Screws Coming Through the Bottom of my Foot After a Gnar Snowboarding Accident and Surgery

2011-05-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

These Pic's n' Vid's shows different views of the CT Scans and X-Ray Vision of my foot after a Snowboarding biff-up and some screws were put it. The screws were too long so this was the view of them before they were removed and a single shorter one was put in.

The pic above from Feb. 9th 2011 shows the original break and where the screws originally went in. Looks good to go from the side view but turns out the screws were jammin' out on the inside of the foot.

This pic shows how one of the screws got all bent somehow inside my foot. Taken April 13th 2011
I was having a bulshy great deal of pain and since the X-ray vision was letting us down we stepped it up to the Feline Scan. Wow medical jokes, that's how bored I am sitting around all day with my foot elevated. For those of you who don't get it, Cat Scan yes, lame, I know.

These scans go from bare bones to images with muscle and tissue. The bright rods of light are the screws and if they exist in the image where there is no bone, that's where they are coming out of the bottom of my foot.

This Vid is 3D model of this very 'screwy' situations ohhh zing!!

Broken bones, Screws, and more Screws. Exit theory, enter reality.

2011-05-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

Three months ago I shattered my heel bone snowboarding at Mt. Bachelor in Oregon. I came up on the buckle, landed backseat after jamming off a nicey in the park. It was a corduroy day, blue-bird and chilly. Made it 5 days with the thing swollen like Stewie Griffin's head piece. Became a Scrabble master while the rest of my party hit the mountain for another couple. Had surgery down in Southern Oregon. It was Screws and cement holding me together for a while.
Elevated(in more ways than one) and rehabbed for a few months. Turns out I was stuck in recovery-limbo cus the screws were in 'so deep so deep' they put my Planter Fascia to sleep'. (Ice Cube meets Sanjay Gupta...Nice Joel, Ice Gupta) Screws were coming through the bottom of my heel bone, digging in to some 'kinda' important anatomy, just stuff that makes your foot a foot. Rehab was a bit of nightmare imagine doing squats with nice chunky pebbles in your shoes the whole time. Well it wasn't like that at all but I was trying to treadmill and misc. with sharp as med. screws fuckin' my shit up.

So, fast forward a sukoshi. And I'm now sitting on the eve of round two. Going under the knife tomorrow the screws are coming out and new shorter fatter ones are going in. I've lived through some gnar gnar pain with my attempts at rehab before. So I'm hoping that this screw predicament gets cleared up and I'm a new man.

This is kind of a pointless post but i wanted to put it in writing to emphasize some things to myself. Your health is everything. But invalidity (temporary) is a window to reality. I have learned so many things about so many things, in essence, even before the screw sitch is cleared up already become a new man. Your loves and your desires for the world and where you wanna exist within it are are condensed, distilled, and concentrated. There is no time for taking things for granted. Even standing and walking are great pleasures of life. Once I am healed that will no doubt fade, as I think it should in order to focus on the higher reaches of happiness and potential. But I have seen what I want to do, who I am through the lense of not being able to do what I want or act as I'd like. I have been healthy and mobile for many many years yet I have not acted on what I 'truly' wanted (well I have and I haven't). For procrastination or some other forms of denial I don't know. But what I know now, I am ready for. I am ready to realize things that have hovered in the realm of the theoretical for a while now.

I won't get too into this. The topic is still surgery and the outcome is still unknown. Let me hop onto the cliche band wagon and say I think this has happened for a reason, I know that reason, and so I think I have earned my passage to recovery.

Firebreathing Bushwhackers

2011-04-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

The crossroads have been met. I think of train tracks. Hop on the train, ride it through the great countryside, or walk across the tracks, wander into the bush and see the great countryside? It's tough, both are adventures, you will see many cool things either way no doubt. But one ends where I know it will end, at the station. One ends somewhere else, the 'unknown road'. All postmodern thinking to the contrary, one is objectively better than the other. For some the train and the station, for others, bushwhacking the brambles. The junction of the crossroads have proven problematic for me, many trains have passed yet I wait, scuffle my feet and make whimpers like Silus my dog when he wants but knows not whaty what, dusty, hungry and thirsty.

All romantic notions of the traveler aside. On the unknown road the highs are higher but the lows my friends are much much lower and the middle, like this country, become a thing of the past. There is heart-break, soul-doubt, and acute indigestion of the bodily everywhere on the diet of those fed on outlier experiences. Lives are lost, wasted, raised to the ground but the path forged is the only place for lives lost to be vindicated, advanced, even ascensionated . I suppose I'm doing a poor job of dissuading my lovely reader from the romance of the bushwhacker life, the trailblazer's trail. My point is merely, there are much more than thorns in a forest of bushes. It is much more difficult than rolling over tracks laid on the efforts of past whacker-renegades. It's where the outstanding rewards of life will always lay but beware my loves, the path not followed but created can be undignified in it's ruthless treatment of it's patrons.

That said, hopping on the train, seeing the sights and living 'the life' is not to be brushed aside as a thing for those who lack courage or creativity, the mundane for the mundane. For those who find it right, it is every bit as fulfilling as those who must cascade 180 foot waterfalls in a little plastic boats to get theirs. The train riders, they pay their fare and sit in seat 82a, window seat, the concessions will come around and refreshment will be served. That makes them happy, the plumage. The decision made at the crossroads despite my fictitious-black and white analogy in play here, is a choice that is lived by degrees, it is not an on off switch. BUT fundamentally speaking there is a point, and there is a line and at some point one must cross or not cross that line. And at the risk of sounding very Hollywood, there is no going back once on the other side. Crumpets in coach will no longer do the trick.

What I'm parle-ing sounds like a question of 'how' to live, but nay nay, it's a 'why' to live question that concerns us. To live to make dinner with your wife and new born child, while making sure your mortgage is paid or live to see the swell, see the wind shift, see the conditions reach epic, enter the deluge head first and push for dear life. This does not suggest that those with mortgages can't surf and those who live to surf can't have wives and children they adore. Nor that living to surf should by any stretch be considered a trailblazing modus operandi, on the contrary, it can be quite run of the mill depending on the surfer and the surfing. "I surf because it's good exercise and I live in Hawaii so..." that, in your humble's opinion, is a choice on 'how' to live. It's the same as I go to work because I need to earn money, not right nor wrong, it just is what it is, and is not the subject here. 'I live to surf, I live to catch the wave of all waves in the conditions of all conditions'(and will subsequently push the sport to it's new pinnacle), that is an answer to 'why live?'. You could then say happiness is the purpose of this made up person's life, or surfing is, they are synonyms, both would be correctamundo. 'I live to surf', I 'Surf to be alive'. Those who burn themselves in an established profession or non, would always answer the why question with what they are burning themselves for. It's their life blood, their fuel for breathing fire. They are the only one's who reach the unprecedented. What really differentiates the trainriders and the bushwackers is the question 'why'. Why live ? and Why do this with my life? No ragin' cagin' true blue trailblazer seeks for novelty's sake, or money, it's never to raise the bar just because the bar's never been that high. The motive power behind such force is rather that immaculate motive, sopping with integrity, dripping, slurping, beautiful reason of self-achievement. I built it, I did it, I made it... why dear sir or mam?' 'Why did you do that?' 'Because it makes me happy'. 'Oh how quant'
Know the answer to 'why' through and through, the 'how' follows suit.

But I have strayed, oh my, how tragically I have strayed the topic of this exposé, as I'm sure you all remember and are dying to return to, is that of 'your most humble narrator' Me. (If you've read A Clockwork Orange you'll know why I'm talking like a butthole) Oh dear 'droogies' read on, read on, the unknown road, and the choo choo trainy wainy and how your narrator propounds to surmount such a perdicky wicky is to come.

I am damaged, those like me are damaged. We are men and women who no longer see well. As a course of special gift or through experiences I am not sure but we no longer see the normal spectrum of light and dark. Nor do lines delineate things for us, it's blurred and tonal, we can no longer be guided to safety by the lines of illumination on the cockpit floor, we see explosions though. Our proverbial sight is limited to the spectrum of black holes and solar flares. Seriously, I'm even getting sick of the metaphors... No I'm not! Normalcy no longer picks our peckers up. It takes a lot more pre and post to get our rocks off basically. Thanks David Carradine, our hats are off to you sir. What's life like not on the edge of a razor? Dull I say, dull.

So your narrator stands at the crossroads. To hop on the train, learn zen master ninja techniques of calming my senses, years of slow breathing and 5:00am yoga, learn how to love and be contented with the ball bouncing? Have a beautiful calm life of equilibrium and mild laughter.
OR
Pull out the machete, tuck the pants into socks to avoid the ticks and mosquitos, eat the last two finger-widths of G.O.R.P. and dust left in my sachely sachel. Pull the hat down low, crease those age-gouges forming between my eyebrows with the scowl of determination saved especially for the fist "whack". Enter the thicket, brush, trees and beyond. It could be sweet lakes of paradise, golden sunsets and bounty for days or treacherous roads to ruin for years, the unknown road?

From here dear friends, dear acquantances, and oh my patient patient patricians, your "humble narrator" takes his step. Stepping one railroad tie, hopping the tracks, I pull back the machete feel the muscles tense, contract and whacky whack the bushy wush. Join me if you want, catch me if you can.

The Umbrella

2009-04-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

This is a painting I completed in Baltimore MD, after doing a three week landscape painting trip in eastern Canada. Picked up the umbrella on the trip hence the maple leaf. Loved the light of the scene so I painted it.

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