Social - Political

The Enablers (See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil) is directed at a particular audience: American women. I am asking WTF. After all of your struggles for equal rights, why are you still getting screwed over by your husbands? And shouldn't you take some responsibility for their actions?

I'm not speaking about an indiscretion where a married person makes a mistake and the couple can reconcile, returning to a trusting relationship. That is a personal matter between two people. I'm speaking about a married man who continues to lie and repeat their indiscretions without consequences. I'm addressing the collateral damage brought on family, friends, and business relationships.

The Enablers takes this to the highest political level. What collateral damage has been done by these Presidents and their First Ladies' lack of character? Aren't these women concerned about the responsibilities they have as First Ladies? This is a public matter. For whatever reason, turning a blind eye, turning a deaf ear, and not speaking up, the damage to our country continues. This damage is, once again, front and center in the news.

These are three more women that were but also weren’t

Like many families, the Cleaver household of today isn’t what it appears to be. Behind the perfect Cleaver family portrait there lay deceit, betrayal, and pain. The superficial family collapses and the children become innocent casualties.

Beaver’s Lament is a sad story. The story is complicated and the four pieces just represent a problem and a symptom. The problem is a family torn apart by adultery and the symptom is a child’s world devastated by divorce.

To put the Cleaver’s story in a contemporary context I chose to place Ward and June into a role reversal situation. Unfortunately June fell into the trappings of monetary power and self-righteousnessonce delegated to her male peers. I believe these trappings to be human nature and not gender oriented. Adultery being a two-way street I could have used Fred Rutherford, her lover, as my example.

Beaver being closest to his mother becomes the child most effected. He holds his feelings inside until one day he snaps and beats a deserving Eddie Haskell with a ball bat. Beaver carries his burden into adulthood where his relationship remains unresolved with his mother.

The last piece I produced for this ongoing series is "Rake". As a kid raking leaves and mowing grass was a job for kids. That was how we made money. I don't know what happened but we got lazy.And now we hire immigrants to do our work for nothing and then complain about it.

The Gone Series looks back to 50 years to memories of my childhood in the racially divided mill town of Concord, North Carolina. It highlights events and circumstances that I believe reflect our social evolution and invite comparisons between the past and the present. These comparisons can be viewed literally or metaphorically.

When compiling subjects for this series I tried to think of memorable scenarios that spoke to issues of today and to my responsibilities as a parent and grandparent. Also, I wanted to evoke the perspective of a child experiencing a world created for them by adults. An adult influence, good and bad, not only creates the moment but steers generations to come.

The sixth grade and “The Best Fight I Ever Saw that I was not In” took place. These guys were ten and eleven but fought like men. They went toe to toe and beat the sh-t out of each other. A sign of things to come and only later did I understand how adults contributed to the tragedy in the lives of these children.

The "Gone Series" looks back to 50 years to memories of my childhood in the racially divided mill town of Concord, North Carolina. It highlights events and circumstances that I believe reflect our social evolution and invite comparisons between the past and the present. These comparisons can be viewed literally or metaphorically.

When compiling subjects for this series I tried to think of memorable scenarios that spoke to issues of today and to my responsibilities as a parent and grandparent.Also, I wanted to evoke the perspective of a child experiencing a world created for them by adults. An adult influence, good and bad, not only creates the moment but steers generations to come.

“Baby Baby It's a White World” reflects on my first grade during the beginnings of integration. My first grade class had twenty-four white students and one black student. A ratio that didn't change until the sixth grade. Think about it from the position of a child.

The Gone Series looks back to 50 years to memories of my childhood in the racially divided mill town of Concord, North Carolina. It highlights events and circumstances that I believe reflect our social evolution and invite comparisons between the past and the present. These comparisons can be viewed literally or metaphorically.

When compiling subjects for this series I tried to think of memorable scenarios that spoke to issues of today and to my responsibilities as a parent and grandparent.Also, I wanted to evoke the perspective of a child experiencing a world created for them by adults. An adult influence, good and bad, not only creates the moment but steers generations to come.

This particular scene springs from first grade when Carolyn Rounds became the first and only black child in my first grade class. It underscores that Carolyn is entering a completely white world using all white furnishings and the first-grade book – Sally, Dick and Jane – on her desk.