The Cowboy Campfire

Trying to paint the cadaverous brilliance of Peter Cushing

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:25:00 -0400

Trying to paint the cadaverous brilliance of Peter Cushing

A little sneak peek from the book project I’m working on...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:22:00 -0400

A little sneak peek from the book project I’m working on for St. Martin’s Press…

Afternoon warmup: camera

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:50:29 -0400

Afternoon warmup: camera

Morning warm-up: horsey horsey horsey

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:43:00 -0400

Morning warm-up: horsey horsey horsey

Morning warm-up: Frank Lloyd Wright, 1957

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 10:42:05 -0400

Morning warm-up: Frank Lloyd Wright, 1957

Rob Gould interviewed me for his Portland Press Herald column...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 11:55:00 -0500

Rob Gould interviewed me for his Portland Press Herald column about the ins and outs of social media use. I do a pretty decent job of pretending like I know what I’m talking about. Click here to read it.

Click through to read a little piece I did for the Creative...

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Click through to read a little piece I did for the Creative Portland blog about the Abyssinian Meeting House, the third-oldest African American meeting house in America.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:45:00 -0500

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Last weekend I took part in a drawing rally at Space Gallery...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 14:21:00 -0500

Last weekend I took part in a drawing rally at Space Gallery here in Portland. I didn’t really keep track of the junk I drew, but here’s a little race car from the evening’s haul of doodles.

rest in peace to the side-burniest mayor of all time

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 10:12:00 -0500

rest in peace to the side-burniest mayor of all time

Robinson Crusoe

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:23:49 -0500

Robinson Crusoe

I’ll be at Space Gallery (Portland, ME) tomorrow,...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:23:00 -0500

I’ll be at Space Gallery (Portland, ME) tomorrow, participating in a cool little live action drawing rally, 5:00 - 8:00 PM.

Ian Svenonius in a cloak at Space Gallery, Portland, ME (more at...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:38:00 -0500

Ian Svenonius in a cloak at Space Gallery, Portland, ME (more at Creative Portland)

“That’s nothing to be proud of, Rusty…”

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:25:00 -0500

“That’s nothing to be proud of, Rusty…”

the milkman of human kindness

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 08:57:33 -0500

the milkman of human kindness

Here’s a watercolor based on a old photograph by my...

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:27:00 -0500

Here’s a watercolor based on a old photograph by my pal Brian Maryansky

Here’s a doodle of LaGasa’s workstation.

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 08:46:56 -0500

Here’s a doodle of LaGasa’s workstation.

Merry Christmas Eve! Here’s a holiday card I illustrated...

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 08:30:00 -0500

Merry Christmas Eve! Here’s a holiday card I illustrated for Airbnb. Suzanne LaGasa designed, of course.

Let’s get all Lyme disease-ey up in this piece.

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 08:49:20 -0500

Let’s get all Lyme disease-ey up in this piece.

Built in 1908, The New Amsterdam Maritime Savings and Loan...

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:00:00 -0500

Built in 1908, The New Amsterdam Maritime Savings and Loan Building on the corner of 27th and Brulard Avenue has long been one of the iconic sights of Manhattan’s Tinfoil District.

After the bank folded in 1962, the building remained vacant until conceptual artist Earl “Carbide” Brookner began hosting a series elaborate installations (which he dubbed “Multi-Feelias”) in the building’s abandoned lobby in the early seventies. The structure remained a focal point for the art scene for much of the decade—most famously, Italian B-movie director Luigi Malatesta filmed his paranoiac freakout masterpiece, The Bloodletters (1972) entirely within the building. The film’s denouement, set inside the bank’s vault, in which Sylvia Zola murders her double-amputee husband by drowning him in a vat of pea soup, is particularly disturbing—Pauline Kael called it “blandly atrocious.”

As the Tinfoil District continued to decline, the building skipped back and forth from one absentee landlord to another throughout the 1980’s. Eventually, the local tennis shoe wholesale outlet Jimmy Spazz began using the upper floors as a warehouse, but the gilded age lobby remained vacant and decaying. It wasn’t until last year when the first New York branch of the Scandinavian clothing superstore Skutla moved into the building that the historic lobby was somewhat restored, albeit in the name of affordable mass-produced fashion.