We had a fantastic opp to tour the Mediterranean (on a budget) visiting Italy, Croatia, Greece and Turkey. The shooting was a blast and you can view the trip photography here.

The second piece in the mixed-media series use Mitsumata branches, glass and mirror. 58" x 21". It's constructed to hang but with almost 6' of glass I'm a little paranoid 'bout going for it. Transitioning to plexiglass and for now, this one will just sit on top of the fireplace.

I'm currently working on 5 pieces simultaneously, each is different but has a common material theme of wood twigs, branches and a little mixed media thrown in. This is the first one completed.

After an unexpected three week detour I'm back in the saddle and a morning ritual I certainly missed was reading my blogs over coffee. I follow about twenty or so—some that are updated quite regularly and others just periodically. Two long time favorites are www.ffffound.com, probably the most eclectic site on 'all things design' you'll ever come across. The second is John Well's blog—an ex-New York fashion photographer who totally stepped off the grid about three years ago and set up The Field Lab. He documents his daily life (in the middle of a Southern Texas desert) and work maintaining renewable energy experiments, a substainable habitat and a minimalist lifestyle—all in pretty harsh conditions.

Sad, mind numbing and exhilarating art -- all at the same time. An incredible 5 year collaboration between photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre as they documented The Ruins of Detroit.

I scored these two lights for twenty-five bucks each at my new, fav scavenging grounds - The Santa Rosa Habitat for Humanity Recycling Center. Cleaned them up and couldn't wait to get 'em hung. Art Deco antiques, heavy-duty stainless steel hardware and 1/4" sand-blasted green glass. Nice!

First print from my new (used) prosumer Epson R2400 Inkjet printer. Thanks Nancy and Steve, although all I need is to take on additional software testing. There's certainly more than meets the eye on working through the nuances of digital printing. Btw...the image is from 12,500 ft. at Ouray, Colorado — rusted, mine car railroad tracks (on their own) perfectly staged in a beautiful pile of dark mud.

A little over 4 months ago, my beloved first generation G5 iMac finally called it quits. After years of being whipped like a buggy, a fried mother board did her in. It was cost prohibitive to consider replacing and I was more than due for 'da upgrade - but couldn't bring myself to haul the old gal off to an electronics recycler. Never a doubt she deserved better.

The Apple flat panel G5 was one eye turning, churning, burning piece of industrial design and without peer. Easily the best built (and looking) consumer computer the industry had seen to date. On my own front, the rebirth started by deconstructing the case and removing the interior chassis -- even had to track down a few specialty electronics screw drivers for the extraction. Finally with carcass in hand, I laid it out on a painters tarp, mixed up a batch of light, medium, dark grey and black acrylic paint and went all Jackson Pollack on it. The end result, reincarnation as a mixed media piece that can now (RIP) remain by my side in the studio. What is somewhat disappointing though are the two resulting prints (below). The real allure of the piece is its scale--with the capacitors, hard drive, fan, logic board, etc all having a vertical relief of an inch or more (which doesn't translate via a one-dimensional jpeg). Construction-wise I reversed and flipped the chassis around and with a few modifications 'made it fit' then placed a piece of museum quality plexiglass on the inside front to replace the LCD screen. What makes the piece work for me is the painted electronics took on an extreme, miniature 3D sensibility. A Google maps, satellite view of an industrial park landscape.

As I type this now with my new gal (the stunning 27" G5), and it's probably just my imagination, but thought I just saw her shiver.