The River Arts District (RAD) along the French Broad River in West Asheville boasts over 200 artists' studios sprawled out over twenty-two warehouses and buildings. It's also home to the Foundy Street Skate Park, where local skaters go to refine their buttery boardsliding skills and kickflips. Novices and experts alike gather to share seasoned knowledge, trick tips and technical skills. It's my favorite pocket of Asheville.
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I travelled from Paris to Berlin on a whim on an overnight bus last August. The overcast day was drizzling with an industrially appropriate dose of Berlin. I was impressed by the incessant buzz of honey bees sucking the sugar off various bakeries' pastries. I later discovered the Berliners appreciation for bees. Again, impressed. The heavy metal, war-torn history and industry inspired me to imagine Iron Maiden playing in the background. Berlin and Brooklyn began to juxtapose themselves both phonetically and aesthetically. Thousands of shutterclicks ensued. Below is a gallery of what I saw that gray and heavy morning.
AI prompt: Explain Joseph Campbell’s Eternal Principle in the style of James Joyce.
AI: What is the eternal principle? A word, a sound, a breath. It is not born, it does not die. It is in all things, it is in you now. You are a wave on the face of the ocean. When the wave is gone, is the water gone? Has anything happened? Nothing has happened. It is a play, a game, a dance. A dance of forms and shapes, of light and dark, of joy and sorrow. A dance of the One and the many, of the same and the different, of the eternal and the temporal. A dance of God and man, of heaven and earth, of spirit and matter. A dance of the eternal principle.
Featured here is an audiovisual recording I made of a Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine (TAPM) ceremony in the Ecuadorian rain forest set to the entrancing ceremonial chanting of the Quichua shaman, Don Luis. The prominent river in the video is the Jatanyaku, flowing past La Laguna Azul, which is usually a bright light blue, but because of the rain the blue was overrun with a chocolate milk-like Amazonian brown.
I'm presenting here my series of vibrant Freak Flags seen one sunny morning at the Boom Land Lake at Boom Festival 2023 (Day 6). These psychedelic freak flags were flying especially high this morning.
July 1st 2023: I think it's the highest I've ever been (geographically). I made it to the summit of Imbabura (4640 m) along with a three-legged dog named Rambo and a ten-month old mutt. These intrepid dogs belonged to my guide, Jose, the grandson of Aida, owner and founder of the laid-back hostel, Casa Aida, located in the idylic little Ecuadorean village of La Esperanza. This tiny Andean town, tucked away in the Imbabura Province, is the principal launching pad for the majority of Imbabura Volcano climbers.
The Imbabura volcano is considered to be an inactive stratovolcano, which last erupted approximately 7,500 years ago. A giant Florida Gator gazes up at curious tourists. A ruby red gorilla pounds his barrel-sized chest as if he were declaring that he is kicking King-Kong to a forgotten curb. A solitary geometric wolf howls up at three Florida palm trees as a giant panda casually munches on a stick above a crowd of gawking tourists.
I noticed the peculiar balloon-like sculpture while biking around South Beach during Miami Art Week last year. I knew the overwhelming frenzy of Basel-related activity was going to prevent me from visiting the Orb again, but I made a note of the surreal sculpture. A year later I returned to Art Week and photographing the Orb was at the top of my list.
After Boom Festival 2022 came to a close, we took an Andalusian flavored ride over to Granada after a Mediterranean dip around the geographically significant city of Alicante, on the Valencian side of Spain. There's nothing like a summer tour of Spain, and we've been planning on returning to Granada in order to visit the world-renowned, architectural wonder of the Alhambra (with a dash of that mind-altering Arabian spice). So with Spanish Caravan by The Doors playing on a loop, we road tripped back over to this magical multi-cultural palace of a place.
Boom Festival 2022Featured here are acid-soaked photographs taken at Boom Festival 2022's Dance Temple. Psytrance rippled across space-time as I attempted to capture these slippery psychedelic moments before whizzing past me forever.
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