Teeny Teens

To capture the essence of teenagers I illustrated the youth of America. Here I present Attitude and Babies Having Babies. This imagery happened to remind me of a reputable Zen Parable, Please enjoy.

Is That So?

A beautiful girl in the village was pregnant. Her angry parents demanded to know who was the father. At first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom everyone previously revered for living such a pure life. When the outraged parents confronted Hakuin with their daughter's accusation, he simply replied "Is that so?"

When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. "Is that so?" Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.


For many months he took very good care of the child until the daughter could no longer withstand the lie she had told. She confessed that the real father was a young man in the village whom she had tried to protect. The parents immediately went to Hakuin to see if he would return the baby. With profuse apologies they explained what had happened. "Is that so?" Hakuin said as he handed them the child.

Vincent Van Gone, the After Gogh

I placed an airbrush artist (Kasper), a painter(Willard Malebear), three models(Allicia Christensen, Zoee Taylor, Melanie Hunt), two acrobats (Brandon Wharton & Rebecca Yale, a harpist (Andrea), and a latex specialist mask making performer(Brently Davis) all in one place and said GO

This is Vincent Van Gogh experiencing the land of the dead.










For more on the Bardo Thodol (Land of the Dead)


and Yama, the lord of Death

Project M; Welcome Home

Project M is an international summer intensive program that came to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design this past summer. The project M team encourages design students to think beyond pre-deterministic linear thought pathways and enable them to utilize their potential to benefit the community through art.

The Minneapolis team chose to make Minneapolis more welcoming and homely by distributing door mats reading "welcome home" on sidewalks, apartments and homeless shelters to give the people a sense of belonging and what it feels like to be welcomed. BI hosted the show in their gallery space and gave every MCAD student a blank card with the instructions to write something to inspire the homeless during the holidays and turn them in for a chance to win door prizes. For every card donated 10$ was given to St. Anthony's homeless shelter. I didn't score a new Ipod but the real things worth winning aren't things.