For the past couple of months I’ve become brutally honest with myself, from questioning my choices to become a professional artist in the first place, to the increasingly disparaging thoughts of why I went to school and drove my future into personal debt crisis.

Starving artist? Not yet, but…

Although I love the creative voice this talent and education as afforded me, the fact is the majority of our society has discounted the arts as something that is not important enough to apply a financial worth to it.

I can’t help but to feel duped by the university arts program.

There should have been a greater focus on the business of art, the marketing and management of the talent. I could have done without some of the required history courses and AFO.

But, now I’m becoming angry, and that burn swelling inside is starting to focus my attention on the work’s evolution to a new way of looking and thinking about my art.

The fact is, I can’t “shut up”.

Not being able to paint just for the sake of painting, the work produced seems to always speak with some sort of “message”.

And this society doesn’t fuckin’ want to hear it.

If I were to completely flip and become an “abstract expressionist”, I’d be fooling myself and lying to the public just to try to sell art. I’ve been doing this work too long to change from being the artist wanted to be, to become something I’m not.

Employing the use of stencils in the current work has the effect making me excited about working again. Combining the use of my graphic design skills into the process has altered the way I paint, at the same time, helped me design differently as a graphic artist!

The deeper side of this evolutionary track, is what interested me in becoming an artist in the first place was the graffiti art in New York in the early 1980′s. For “street art” from the U.S. and Europe to begin influencing the work in 2011 has made a 360° turn to my creative life.

Although, to some it may seem like I’m jumping on the “street art movement” to create “salable” art without having the credentials of a criminal vandalism record. And even though I asked myself about the real reasons for the change, the conclusion is, if this is what I have to do to keep from abandoning the arts, it’s what I’m going to do.

I don’t need nor want a police record.

But now, when I see a piece of “public art”, graffiti, tag or a paste-up, I look at it differently. The person who took a chance, did not wait for a gallery to approve them to show their work to the public. Their mark is out on a wall, a fence, a train or on the side of a box van, being seen by society.

Like it or not, it “exists”.

As for the new direction, I welcome the inspiration from the “vandals”. I’m tired of waiting and sick of feeling suffocated, so damn the criticisms…from others and especially, from myself.

thanx for viewing…

k!

I’m bored…

That sums up the change to style and subject matter in my art, although, I wouldn’t classify it as a “whole sale” abandonment of my current work, but I do realize in order for me to want to create, some new elements must be explored to get a the result in the work that makes me exited about painting again.

In all honesty, I find myself asking if the work is “too deep”, as in if the public doesn’t react to it or it they miss the point of what the work is communicating because I’ve drawn on subject matter that is obscure and too political to immediately understand.

After over a decade of being topical with my art, its hard for me to shut-up in my work, But I do recognized the social value of “pop art”, and its at this point I find myself at a crossroads.

Do I continue doing work that express political topics or do I let go for a while and explore “pop” and create it under a pseudonym?

Still seen as contemporary expressionism, elements of my past are really starting to emerge and take form in the way of stencils and basic more simplified elements and color. The evolution of my creative expression is also attributed to being stirred by “street art”. Its inspiration has also drawn me in because of the fact that it is art that doesn’t sit in a studio waiting for approval by a gallery to be approved or denied to hang on their walls. I feel like I’m suffocating looking for approval from other people to show my work and I seriously asking myself if it’s worth the wait.

While trying not do anything “illegal” to get my work out in public environment, the pull to “just fuckin’ do it” is almost like a constant scream in my ear, a tug at my heart and a shove at my back. With so much the work wants to say, it’s shouts to “stop waiting and get on with it!” has kept me up at night thinking about the “what if’s”.

Not to disparage the artwork created over the more that 20 years as an artist,  I continue to be so very proud of it, but I think its kept me a little too grounded, so much so that I’ve became afraid to take off and see what flying feels like.

Maybe this frustration waiting for clearance is going to force me to take flight without waiting for someone else to allow me too.

Thanx for viewing…

k!

I used the accompanying text to the Diluted Loss and created a video in honor of the men & women the series is dedicated to. The show opens (First) Friday, May 6th 2011 at 7pm-9pm @ Richmond Public Library: Main Branch Downtown Richmond, VA.

thanx for viewing.

k!

The latest edition to the Diluted Loss series brings in focus the military and civilian aspects of the Jim Crow laws that insured a white dominated society rule by suppressing the lives of the black american population as well as the black soldier and sailor.

According to law.jrank.org:

“By the start of WORLD WAR I, every southern state had passed Jim Crow laws. Becoming entrenched over the next few decades, the laws permeated nearly every part of public life, including railroads, hotels, hospitals, restaurants, neighborhoods, and even CEMETERIES. Whites had their facilities; blacks had theirs.

The white facilities were better built and equipped. In particular, white schools were almost uniformly better in every respect, from buildings to educational materials.

States saw to it that their black citizens were essentially powerless to overturn these laws, using poll taxes and literacy tests to deny them the right to vote. Jim Crow even extended to the federal government: Early in the twentieth century, discriminatory policies were rife throughout federal departments, and not until the KOREAN WAR (1950–53) did the armed forces stop segregating personnel into black and white units.”

“Capt. JIM CROW Civ. JIM CROW” is created as a reminder of the trials the black american soldier had to overcome to become some of the nations finest warriors. With the overall image of a painted american flag transitioning to burned, the photos of black men and women in their military roles.

What makes this a powerful and telling piece about the history of the county’s racial strife is the inclusion of, not only actual Jim Crow laws, but also the words of former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) speaking in front of the 2008 National Tea Party Convention who advocated for “LITERACY TEST before people can vote “, which pointed straight to the will of some politicians to stoke the fires of racism to further their own selfish political careers.

What the Diluted Loss/ Capt. JIM CROW attempts to accomplish is for the viewer to realize the racial issues of the past and recognize it when the same segregationist drum beat is pounded into national policy to this day.

Thanx for viewing.

k!

Digital Short video for the May 6th, 2011 show at the Richmond Public Library: Main Branch.

Thanx for viewing…

k!

On a seasonably warm Saturday last weekend, cities around the United States held rallies in support of Public Sector unions and worker’s rights, not only in Wisconsin, but in all 50 states as well. In Richmond it was held on the lawn of the Virginia State Assembly, underneath the historic bell tower.

The message was straight forward, workers need protection from poverty/slave wages, dangerous working conditions and a courrupt company bosses and politicians who seek to impoverish the lives of americans and destroy the country they’ve created thru the hard work.

The REPORT:

Sat, Feb 26th, 2011 12:14pm

Upon arrival while walking up the hill you instantly noticed a small crowd of about 75 to 100 people trading personal stories and frustrations about the state of affairs in relation to workers rights and politics. Made up of mostly older citizens of an age range of 45 – 65, there were from a mixture of occupations such as teachers, electrical workers and law enforcement plus others that came from as close as the Fan in Richmond to as far away as Lynchburg, Virginia.

As people continued to show up, spray painted hand-made signs and printed protest signs were on hand for people to take and display during the rally and at their homes later that day.

Though not everyone on the grounds were there for the protest. A few families with children wearing school uniforms were taking in the day, but almost seem to be hurried thru by their father while a seemingly annoyed grandmother walking thru the protest with a small child was overheard saying “…. all these people scared the squirrels away.”

The only local TV station to make a report about the protest was WRIC Channel 8 news. Chelsea Washington was seen with an assisting cameraman asking questions to receive answers from not only union members and protesters, but a local Tea Party member who was in support of the Wisconsin governors decision.

I made an effort to monitor all three channels at the 11pm news slot Saturday night to see if there was a report on the day’s protest and Chelsea Washington’s report was aired, while the other local TV news organizations, WTVR 6 & NBC 12 were a no-show.

Bell Tower 1:00 pm

As the bell tower tolled and Joe Cook, MoveOn.org Council Coordinator of Hampton Roads, began the chants to warm up the expanding crowd or supporters, while Viginia State Police were making themselves present by standing on the peripherals of the protest. A few imposing men in suit and sunglasses made their way into the crowd after speaking with the troopers. It was later realized that they have come as security for one of the speakers.

As the rally got fully underway the crowd grew to about 300+ people, while more were still coming from behind the belltower and adding to the rear of the crowd.

the event speakers included: Richard Hatch of the Communications Workers of America, VEA President Kitty Boitnott, Suzanne Keller of Williamsburg, “UNPAID” Washington lobbyist and former Regional Coordinator for MoveOn.org Andrea Miller, J.R. Tolbert of the Virginia Chapter Sierra Club, Larry Yates and Sandy Delano of Williamsburg.

One of the most compelling stories came from speaker Bill Schaffer who told of his father’s fight for better working conditions in his home state of Wisconsin in the early 1930′s. His father’s experience with a boss made it known that, as a worker, he was worth less than a horse whose stable conditions where far better than those of the men who worked for the company. Being easily replaceable made him expendable, so poor working conditions were not treated as essential to management.

He also spoke to the fact that, as americans were watching what was happening in during the uprising in Egypt, some Egyptians were aware of what was going on in Wisconsin. As this came out a young middle eastern man enthusiastically shouted out that he was there and he had seen that sign.

To my surprise that story begin to make my eyes water, and as continued to shoot photos of the crowd I found myself wiping away a few tears that had escaped down my cheeks. Quickly wiping them away I remained listening while shooting, letting out a few shouts of approval as I worked.

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Nearing the end @ 2:00pm
After an hour of listening to the speeches and the stories, hearing and repeating chants of “THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED”, the rally begin to come to a conclusion. The signs were dropped down to the sides of those holding them and faces of the people who came out to voice their support and outrage were becoming more subdued as they walked thru the crowd shaking hands, sharing hugs and moving on to the rest of their Saturday afternoon, not knowing what was to come next in the fight to preserve the American workers’ rights. But for one afternoon in February, Richmond became one with a much larger cause in america…. and around the world.

BTW…the photos produced by METRO R MEDIA are copyrighted 2011 Keith M Ramsey Fine Arts, Richmond, VA. Please feel free to contact me for usage.

For the rest of my life, I will remember standing in front of a room full of veterans from the Vietnam & Korean Wars at the Veterans Outreach Center and thanked them for their service.

And in return, they applauded me.

It happen on Tuesday, Feb 22nd when just before I begin to talk about DILUTED LOSS and who I am as the artist and what drives the work. The room was packed from front to back with a mixture of black and white vets and a few of their family members.

At first I was more nervous than I’ve ever been before when talking about the series. It was because of the collective experience of these older warriors that was, at this point in time, focusing on me at the from of the long room.

After the initial applause, a small joke and some laughter, I was back on my game and began to speak with confidence.

For this particular Black history Month presentation I wanted to try something new, and other than speaking only in relation to the work, the goal was to focus on the historical significance of the work. Studying had prepared me with historical facts about the Tuskeegee Airmen, the USS Mason DE-529, the 761st Tank battalion and the 555th Paratroopers.

Pointing to these stories made the work more relatable to the crowd. They seemed impressed with the fact that I was not willing to “sugar coat” the racial aspects of America’s military past, even in mixed company.

I also made a note about when WWII ended and what came next for black the Americans who fought for the country. Everyone was in agreement about the fact that, while the war was supposed to change life for African-American civilians and the soldiers who fought valiantly during the conflict, American racism and Jim Crow laws were still a weight on their lives and a detriment to their citizenship and participation in politics.

Creating a civil rights time-line and displaying the years between the ending of the war on August 14, 1945 and the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education, decision, the year 1957 when 9 black students were blocked from entering the school on the orders of the governor of Arkansas and 1965 “Bloody Sunday” march for voting rights, illustrated the lack of change in the lives of millions of americans after they assisted in the success of freedom around the world.

All these things created an atmosphere that facilitated conversations from the soldiers, prompting them to tell of their own experiences with the war and racism, bringing up past and present issues that we face as a country.

To my utter surprise, at the end of my talk, the administrators of the Veterans Outreach Center presented me with an award that for participating in their program, which left me speechless. But what really struck me was the men standing in line to come up and shake my hand.

The honor of being able to present Diluted Loss to these men and women was more than I had ever hoped for with this series. I never thought it would lead me to this point in my artistic career, but with my representation from Clarke Art, it feels as though this is just beginning.

Thanx for viewing

k!

“THE MISSED KISS” 2011 Mix Media,

I created this piece after thinking about what I wanted to say with regards to the soldiers coming home after the war. Like today, some soldiers are celebrated and some are left to fade into the background, or worse yet, left to fend for themselves if they come home with Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), in which soldiers are basically told “its better you come home dead than broken, the military can’t use a broken soldier.”

As far as the black soldiers of WWII, when they came home from the war, their lives were still victim of U.S. “Jim Crow” laws, where they weren’t celebrated, but left under the oppression of the white dominated society that concluded black soldiers were to not forget they were still less than American.

Black Soldiers missed out on the celebration of America’s victory over Nazi Germany and Japan, to this day black soldiers are receiving awards that should have been recognized decades ago. After the war, Black Americans still had to fight for Civil Rights, the right to vote and against job and housing discrimination to this day, while the legacy of their heroics in “The Big War” are being steadily eroded away by time.

Thanx for viewing…

k!

After weeks of thinking about the message the new work for DILUTED LOSS would focus on and would attempt to say, I woke up at 4:39am with ideas scraping on the door to my mind. Immediately I got out of bed and went into the office to sketch the ideas down before they escaped my creative grasp. Before my eyes could focus clearly, I had the titles of the pieces that would be added to the series and shown in May 2011.

“THE MISSED KISS” & “Capt. JIM CROW, Civ. JIM CROW” will be worked on this week and hopefully it’ll project the message to the viewing audience as clearly as it did when it came to me in a dream.

The work is becoming more relevant to me after I read an article during my research that stated:

“The opening speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention, former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Col) called President Obama a “committed Socialist ideologue” who was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote.”

While the “JIM CROW” laws were being enforced, Literacy tests were a tactic to suppress the voting rights of African-Americans, while poor whites had a “Grandfather Clause” that allowed them to vote regardless of their educational knowledge.

For a congressional member, former or otherwise, to trumpet “Jim Crow” era laws is unacceptable and repugnant. There’s no question he said this because of the high poll numbers of black support for Barack Obama in the 2008 election leading to the first African-American U.S. President.

The comment by the congressman to the Tea Party, in 2008, shows a willful and quiet march of the political class toward a future that mimics America’s racist past.

It doesn’t matter that Rep. Tom Tancredo, later stepped back from those comments or not.

The ugly truth is, the congressman revelled in the statement all the way to the point where he stated plainly, “Its our nation.”

I’m assuming he isn’t talking to me.

thanx for viewing

k!

“BARKER SHOUTER MOUTHPIECE” 2011 acrylic & charcoal on panel

After learning about the cancellation of “COUNTDOWN with KEITH OLBERMANN” after the sale of NBC to media bohemoth, COMCAST. I felt like the progressive voice in america had been effectively silenced in the universe of “cable news”.

With that loss, the conservative voice from FOX NEWS became louder and the pro-war, pro-corporate and anti-worker point of view will be the only view in corporate news.

If the corporate dominated news seeks to be the voice of the right…

“CIRKUS” will be my progressive voice to point it out.

Although, now I’m wondering if I’m speading myself out too thin with beginning a new series when DILUTED LOSS is getting traction and starting to heat up with a major show in Richmond, VA in May 2011.

Right now I don’t know if I should limit myself or continue to widen my artistic voice.

Something for me to think about.

thanx for viewing

k!