The Furniture Designer

I met Raymond Arias in the early 90's at a Hollywood Flea Market. He was selling religious shrines he'd built from wood and glass incorporating images of angels, saints, the Virgin Mary and other Catholic icons. His work was compelling and I immediately bought a few pieces for my home. Soon, I began seeing these small shrines everywhere. At parties, at restaurants, on tv shows, in hotel lounges. Ray's creations garnered an enthusiastic following and in 1995, Ray and his lovely wife Michelle opened the retail store Furthur in Silverlake. The store was named after Ken Kesey's psychedelic school bus and soon Furthur became a "Best of Los Angeles" pick in numerous local magazines. Ray's goal with Furthur was to present an antidote to cheesy Ikea-grade "assemble it yourself" goods and instead offer high-quality, affordably-priced furniture to local residents. Ray began creating gorgeous Spanish style mosaic tables, handcrafted wrought-iron chairs and cast-iron beds with mosaic tile headboards. His designs were wholly original and the furniture was crafted in a local Los Angeles warehouse. Soon, Ray and Michelle began importing cabinets from Indonesia, drapery from India and candle lanterns from Morocco. Furthur became a Willy Wonka Factory for adults with all manner of colorful and exotic goods in lieu of chocolate. For years friends have told Ray "you need to raise your prices, you should go after the Beverly Hills crowd." Ray kept his equanimity. He never forgot his aim to make sure people in mid-range economic brackets could have access to beautiful things just like rich people. He's hoping that one day he can again return to creating his delicate religious shrines. (5" x 7", black ink print)

David Lynch

It was 1986 and I was waiting in line to see Blue Velvet in Westwood, California. As we neared the theater, a young man in a yellow UCLA sweatshirt vomited into a nearby hedge. Perfect. Blue Velvet is David Lynch's masterpiece. The film is a modern-day film noir with a 50's sensibility invaded by twisted and unnerving violence. This is Lynch's exploration of the American Dream, his journey beneath the calm suburban lawns of small town life.

David Lynch is a surrealist American Filmmaker who somehow found popular appeal. His early bizarre film Eraserhead gained notoriety on the midnight movie circuit. Based on Eraserhead, Mel Brooks hired Lynch to direct The Elephant Man. Later, George Lucas offered Lynch the chance to direct Return Of The Jedi. (Lynch passed and instead made the sci-fi epic Dune).

Lynch's films have a European sensibility and he relies on the subconscious to visually drive his stories forward. He is obsessed with dreams and dreamlike imagery and his soundscapes are fueled by pounding pistons and industrial machinery. Though not always loved by critics, Lynch has received 3 Academy Award Nominations for Best Director and his films have twice won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Lynch also broke ground with his amazing tv series Twin Peaks which featured quirky small town characters, supernatural forces, dreams of backward-talking dwarves and an obsession with hot coffee and fruit pie. (Writer David Chase credits Twin Peaks for helping inspire The Sopranos.)

In the 80's, Lynch co-wrote two amazing screenplays which were never made into films. Ronnie Rocket was about a 3-foot tall red-headed midget and his relationship with electricity while One Saliva Bubble featured a redneck hick who emits a saliva bubble which short-circuits a government weapons system causing townspeople to switch personalities. From 1983-1992, Lynch penned the comic strip The Angriest Dog In The World. These days, Lynch writes music, issues daily LA weather reports from his website, distributes his own gourmet coffee brand and helps spread the teaching and practice of Transcendental Meditation. He still hopes to make Ronnie Rocket into a film. (5" x 7", black ink print)

Bukowski

"I don't hate people...I just feel better when they're not around."

When I was a college student, I had the habit of checking my friends bookcases to see what they were reading. I'd see books by Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Herman Hesse. Looking on a lower shelf, tucked away in a corner perhaps, I'd often see multiple well-worn titles by Charles Bukowski. The message was clear: high-brow reading was necessary but Bukowski was pure fun. Charles Bukowski was a poet of the profane. A student of the gritty streets, he wrote about the shadow side of America. Prostitutes, dingy bars, human cruelty, lonely trysts. He was a brutal drunk, a misogynist, a self-admitted louse. But he was also a prolific writer and at times a sensitive poet with a twisted sense of humor. Born in Germany in 1920, he grew up in Los Angeles son to an abusive, alcoholic father. Bukowski began writing (and drinking) in his teens. He struggled for decades, toiling as an on-again/off-again postal worker until 1969 when he published his first novel "Post Office" at age 49. He went on to publish more than 60 books in his life. Hollywood has made multiple movies about him ("Barfly," "Factotum," "Tales of Ordinary Madness") and his writing remains as popular as ever. Bukowski died of leukemia in 1994 and his funeral was conducted by Buddhist monks. His old De Longpre Avenue Apartment in Hollywood is now an official landmark. His headstone features a graphic of a boxer and the zen-inspired epitaph "Don't try." (5" x 6, black ink print)

Babies & Woodcuts

Woodcuts are by their very nature brusque, harsh & bold. What makes a woodcut portrait come to life are age lines, wrinkles and weathered faces. A well-carved mature actor like Lee Marvin will translate much better than a young Audrey Hepburn (circa "Breakfast at Tiffany's"). Recently, I was commissioned to carve a woodcut of a friend's 15-month old son. This was my first carving of a baby. The boy is beautiful, vibrant and alive like most infants. I ventured forth eager to capture the young boy's spirit. One month later the boy's father was disappointed with the result. "He looks too scary," my friend said. "I just want to capture the feeling of a baby waking from a nap. He's looks kinda sinister." Obviously, I was disappointed and confused. I dove into a second carving eliminating most of the wrinkles and crags in the baby's face. I called upon my wife to soften the baby's eyes. She patterned them after a young deer. This did the trick. The client was happy and the final print morphed into that of a sweet baby boy. (5" x 7", black ink print)

New York Love Letter

"Manhattan" is a sweet little gem of a movie made by Woody Allen in 1979. Shot in gorgeous black & white, the film opens with a stunning montage of New York set to the strains of Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue." Unlike Scorsese's gritty "Mean Streets" & Sidney Lumet's "Serpico," "Manhattan" offers an idealized view of New York. This is Woody Allen's attempt to make sense of his relationship with the city and the difficulty of living a decent life amid society's loose contemporary morals. ("I think people should mate for life, like pigeons or Catholics.") Woody Allen initially disliked the film so much he asked United Artists not to release it, even offering to make another film for free instead. Perhaps Woody was reacting to his own character's portrayal in the film as a twice-divorced comedy writer who dates a 17-year old girl before falling in love with his best friend's mistress. (A trifecta of divorce, infidelity & statutory rape--raw meat for Woody Allen haters.) The movie was distributed by United Artists as the studio was about to fall to pieces due to the "Heaven's Gate" fiasco. The attached woodcut features the iconic shot of Woody & Diane Keaton sitting by the Queensboro Bridge at the end of a long night. The production had to bring their own bench for the scene since there were no park benches in the area. (5" x 7", black ink print)

The Writer

Aram Saroyan is a renowned poet, novelist, playwright and biographer. His father was legendary author William Saroyan and his stepfather was actor Walter Matthau. Aram came of age in the 60's and his early writings were heavily influenced by the Beat Generation. He met the beat triumvirate of Kerouac, Ginsberg & Burroughs and Aram's book "Genesis Angels" chronicles the life of beat poet Lew Welch. Saroyan's philosophy of writing owes much to Allen Ginsberg's exhortations of "First Thought Best Thought" and "Candor Ends Paranoia." In 1967, Aram and his friend the poet Ted Berrigan traveled to Lowell, Massachusetts to interview Jack Kerouac at his home. By this time, Kerouac was a "bull-like ruin." Berrigan gave Kerouac a handful of Orbitols and the two poets watched as Kerouac reminisced about his days with Neal Cassady riding around the country "free as a bee." Kerouac recited his poem "Mexico City Blues" and asked Aram to repeat the words after him, line by line. When the poem was complete, Kerouac rewarded Aram by saying, "You'll do, Saroyan." To Aram, this was the equivalent of a literary knighting. Currently, Aram teaches creative writing at USC. Aram's 2007 collection "Complete Minimal Poems" received the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. His latest book is "Door to the River: Essays and Reviews from the 1960s into the Digital Age." (5" x 7", black ink print)