ed bradley.
journalist. humanitarian. jazz man
+ phillip harvey

Ed Bradley was significant in a number of ways beyond the unquestioned skill and competence he brought to his job. He proved that one could be both supremely competent and supremely hip, reach the paramount professionally while remaining iconoclastically cool. The image of Bradley in his prime persists. Diamond earring glistening in his ear, eyes locked in on his interview subject, hand moving slowly across his salt and pepper covered chin while riding his chair with a subtle gangster lean. Jazz, the cultural form he drew from, informing the rhythm, tone and pitch of his tenor voice. Miles away from the abrasive styles of the Mike Wallaces, Dan Rathers and other combative correspondents who shared Bradley’s rarefied professional air; Ed lulled the world’s biggest noise makers into comfort and eased the truth out of them. No one was better.

And no one was more focused. Bradley took acclaim and hate in stride. The sentiments of those envious of his ability to glide gracefully through the most coveted and demanding journalistic opportunities were absorbed in the same manner as the love notes offered by admirers. He was the virtuoso of journalistic investigation… Miles Davis with a microphone, an easy demeanor and a head full of questions. Intelligent questions. Incisive questions. And like Davis, Bradley knew what he was doing was so good that if he wanted to rock an earring or wear open collar shirts with dangling gold chains (as he did in his younger days) or sport a beard in a profession of hairless faces he would. Because he was that good at what he does.

If there is any question we can always go to the video and to the history books. There you will find that he won 19 Emmys, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, a Peabody and a Lifetime Achievement Award. You will find the footage for Death by Denial, an expose on the tragedy AIDS was (and is) inflicting on Africa, showing that the only bigger tragedy was that so few seemed to care. And you will find In the Belly of the Beast, his journey into the U.S. justice system to find out if “justice” really does mean “just-us.” And you will find film of him going one-on-one with many of the cultural icons of his age, using his wit and warmth to turn interviews with Muhammad Ali, Paul Simon, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and, of course, Lena Horne into after-dinner-next-to-the-water type gabfests. He was, as so many of his colleagues like to say, the “ Man.”

Recently, you could see that Bradley’s health had been poor. At about a buck 90, he was well under his 235 pound football-star days. But if his physical bearing and the intensity in his eyes, which had lost some ability to focus, had waned his tenacity had not. In the last year of his life he took the lead in the investigation of the Duke University Lacrosse accusations and continued to promote the music of his personal soundtrack through his Jazz from Lincoln Center radio programs. Jazz man to the end. Renaissance man to the end. Hell of a journalist until the end.

Rest In Peace Edward Bradley.

a transplant speaks of brooklyn.
+ brook stephenson

I didn’t move to Brooklyn until July 2002. I moved to New Jersey first but that didn’t do it. I wanted Brooklyn. I wanted the energy I feel in Brooklyn. It is the sort of energy that feeds your drive to be X. Whatever X is for you, Brooklyn is the place to do it in. If you can’t feel that then you kind of don’t do Brooklyn or can’t understand why so many people from so many different walks of life love it, live there and never leave. And the most amazing thing is that this energy transcends gender, age, ethnic group, socio-economic class, nationality or any other line of demarcation. It is almost palpable. You feel at your best creatively here, sharp. If you could, you would bottle and sell this feeling to every single human being on the planet until your name was synonymous with Bill Gates. Even then, you would only end up buying a brownstone or two, an apartment building or opening up a restaurant, café, bookstore, boutique or lounge in Brooklyn just so you really wouldn’t have to leave and could afford not too.

A prime example of a day in Brooklyn is waking up in my flat on the third floor of a brownstone owned by an African-American woman with a daughter who lives in the garden and first floor apartment. Looking out the bay windows into the morning light you can see the tree branches from the backyard across from this brownstone’s back windows. You get up and walk across the bedroom past the fireplace through the kitchen to the living room and look out the front bay windows to the brownstones and trees across the street. Ultimately, after you have soaked in the light flowing in through the windows and bathed in the claw foot tub, you go down the stairs through the two wooden doors with ornate moldings outside. You stand for second then step down the stoop to the sidewalk and turn right toward Nostrand Avenue.

This is the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn and this is where I live. It’s highly Caribbean. If you hit the corner you can either go to the grocer with the fresh vegetables, the Bajan restaurant with the bomb bake and saltfish, the Trini restaurant and bakery where everything is good, the Chicago Pizza spot for a pizza in eight minutes, the Jamaican restaurant with the bomb Jerk Chicken or the Met Food market and get groceries to cook something. I don’t know though because you might have a taste for bake and saltfish and a sorrel. You have heard four or five conversations in Patois or English with thick island accents from almost everyone outside right now. But before you can make a decision on what to eat, your phone rings and your friend from California is inviting you out to brunch in Clinton Hill to a spot that’s always filled with good food and beautiful people. It’s not just you, but a group of people with international backgrounds that do any sort of creative craft from clothing design, singing, songwriting, painting, writing, interior design, photography, graphic design engineering, deejaying, artist management, banking, promotions or anything else. You are down and, since it’s a nice day, decide to take a walk from over from Crown Heights. You stroll west with your ipod (theme music) to check out how each block’s community and brownstones change. But before you get to the spot in Clinton Hill, you run into four or five folks you know out and about running errands or just outside for being outside’s sake. True some of these people you work with but you aren’t at work, you are in Brooklyn and it’s a sunny Saturday afternoon with eighty-degree weather.

After you finish brunch and three or four conversations on music, art, politics and gentrification, everybody rolls down to Fort Greene to sit on the scene and drink frozen mojitos at Havana Outpost on Fulton Street. Out of the blue you get a page about a BBQ going down a few blocks over that starts in a couple of hours. No biggie. I guess you will just sit here and continue talking to a few of your Ethiopian home girls when another friend from Haiti rolls over and joins the group. Wait. Is that ol’ girl from England, the anthropologist?

A quick call, nod and beckon and introductions are made round the table and after a finishing our drinks, everyone breaks towards their next destination.

Do I need to talk about the BBQ? It is more of the same international group of people that are expressing themselves to the best of their abilities in the field of their choosing. Beautiful, vibrant individuals who are gushing energy to all around and as you hang around them, you start gushing too.

Now if there was something you missed in there that makes Brooklyn an inspiration let me explain. The walk mentioned is filled with rich images and people wrapped up in life. So much to photograph, write, sing, compose, or paint about that you can’t help but be creative here. It lacks the stuffy concrete of Manhattan and flourishes with foliage. Main roads are open enough to enjoy on a bench, and you do. You have the Botanical Gardens, Prospect Park, Park Slope storefront streets, Fort Greene cafes, Dumbo galleries and eateries, Williamsburg’s everything, Coney Island and dozens of other parks, homes and businesses that cater to your social well being. Even if you start out knowing no one, you begin to build a life with this borough full of strangers.

After a while, you begin to become Brooklynized. You realize the tough love that Brooklyn gives you empowers you to make something happen or leave so someone else can try their luck. It’s not easy. The cost of living is manageable but that doesn’t mean cheap. It has always been the place for those who simply do not have the financial ability to dwell in Manhattan. It’s working class with working class tough love. It’s why people love it here.

It’s real life with the projects across the street and dark corners that force you to keep your wits about you. But it isn’t all darkness. Brooklyn has lights, festivals, concerts and parades. Brooklyn has so much to do; I wonder why people even go anywhere else from 5pm Friday until 8am Monday, if at all.

The secret is that at the heart of it all Brooklyn is a fully functional interconnected community made up of clusters of smaller international communities made up of webs of families and friends. In most parts of this country, this is a recipe for disaster. Various ethnic and national groups do not get along. Yet in Brooklyn, they agree to disagree and do co-exist with one another and, if it really came down to it, would help each other. It is one nation under a groove in a way that America claims to be but just is not. We the people of Brooklyn decide that we want neighborhoods with trees and people we can talk to, smile and laugh with. We want inspirational streets and blocks. We want to express this love we feel. We want to express this love to the world. We want to express it in our art from our soul. This interconnected community has always been the place of dreams from the first two waves of immigrants to now.

Is it perfect? No. Is it inspiring? Yes. Will I live here for the rest of my life? I don’t know look me up in twenty years.

Lines streak and twist and turn until they form something recognizable. First you follow the lines until you notice the slope of a head, beyond that you begin to notice the features, the suddenly prominent features. This is where it gets deep. You follow the lines past the slope of a head and the curiously beautiful features and you find expression, intricately detailed emotion etched in and between the lines. It is at that point when you, in the words the artists, “get it.”

Nat Creole: Tell us a little about your background.  How has your diverse upbringing influenced your personal development and ultimate decision to create art?

Ross Ford: Well, moving around so much has really given me an appreciation for the different lifestyles people live in different areas, urban/rural, east coast/Midwest.  I still haven’t lived out west yet, but I’ll get there
someday.  The main thing though is that it made me really comfortable meeting people.  When you leave an area and have to make all new friends again every couple of years you learn to find common points of interest
pretty quick.  Of course, it’s easier as a kid; you have this built in social networking opportunity at school, it gets harder as you get older.

I don’t know how that has influenced my decision to make art exactly other than by moving around so much I came into contact with a lot of great people who influenced me as an artist.  When I started painting (in 8th grade) I was awkward like most kids that age and looking for meaning and significance in the feelings I was experiencing.  I learned a lot from Duane Penske, who was my painting mentor out in Minnesota.  He taught me a lot about translating your feelings into art, taking dreams or situations and marking their significance with a permanent object.  I guess Duane was the person who first introduced me to the concept of art as a diary.  Not so much as a literal record of what happened to you, but an emotional diary of how you felt at a particular time.  Duane would drive out into the corn fields after work and park his car somewhere, let his cat play in the field while he listened to music and sketched out his dreams. He showed me that art was a useful way to make sense out of confusing experiences or feelings.

NC: You took some time away from creating.  Was there some moment of clarity that led you back to painting and creating or was it a slow drift?

RF: Yes there was.  I was caught up in life and bullshit, working a job that I hated.  I was depressed, I felt that the job was not really going anywhere and where it was heading I didn’t like too much.  I realized that work was always going to suck for one reason or another and that I had to do something outside of work that was meaningful.  I had to find something that was bigger than myself, something that had significance for me, but
also contributed something positive to the world.  Driving home from work one day, I stopped at the art supply store and bought some canvas, gesso, a tub of titanium white and a tube of Golden carbon black.  It took about a month to finish that first painting.  The real moment of clarity though was when I was out on the street that first weekend in January and I met my first patron Robert.  Talking with him and feeling that someone else
“got it” was amazing.  I had made a connection with another person who saw the art and recognized the feelings I had recorded.  That was it, knowing that I was really not alone.

NC: How has your marketing background impacted the way that you approach your artistic career?  And was this a great influence on your decision to take your process to the street?

RF: The biggest influence marketing has had on my artistic career is the concept of making things easily accessible.  The website is a central point of contact for me to stay in contact with the people I meet.  I
print post cards with my paintings on them and the web address on the back to give to people on the street who respond to my art.  I guess marketing has taught me that it is important to stay in touch with the people who get it and that it is the key, to make it easy to maintain that connection. It’s all about the people who get it after all, not the people who don’t.

I started painting on the street out of necessity really; I had no place to show.  While my marketing experience did not so much influence the decision to take the process to street, it has definitely influenced the way I take it to the street.

NC: Your interest in visual emotion seems to date back to your teenage years.  What about emotional expression first caught your attention and has then sustained it for all of these years?

RF: Early on I was interested in self expression.  Like most kids in 8th grade it was purely for selfish reasons, trying to figure out what I was feeling, how I fit into the world, trying to figure out what was happening
in my brain.  As I got older, I realized that emotions are what make us human; they connect people of different backgrounds and places.  Every one of us responds emotionally to experience, and if we notice, can recognize the emotional responses of others.  I didn’t really recognize the power of sharing emotions with others until I started painting on the street.  Not only did people recognize the emotions I was portraying, but they also identified with them.  That is a powerful experience, realizing that you are not alone, other people feel the same way that you do, you are connected and part of a shared reality.  Making those connections is why I
paint.  Self expression for its own sake is kind of empty, making connections and sharing reality is the fulfilling experience I was looking for when I started painting again.

NC: Much of your early work was in black and white.  What was the thinking when you began moving toward using color?  How does it help you express what you are trying to get across?

RF: It was a natural progression to color.  The first paintings were in black and white because that’s the only way that I could see them.  They were translations of black and white pencil drawings onto canvas.  I
experimented early on with using a color line on a white background, but that only went so far.  There are several pieces I did with two lines of different colors.  They were interesting experiments but I found that it
was more distracting than complimentary.  Number 61 is the first piece that shows the “fill” style that I have been working in lately.  Compared to my most recent work it is primitive.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it
when I first tried it.  Once I started buying more colors, specifically when I started mixing my own colors is when I realized the full potential of the style.  Number 71 I think is the first one where I started experimenting with pastels of the same colors.  Color adds a whole other dimension to the work.  Line and form are the basis of each face expressing the raw emotion, but color adds depth, intensity and context.

NC: So what is next?  Are there any plans on the burner?

RF: Currently I’m looking for somewhere to show for the upcoming Art Basel fair here in Miami Beach.  I have also been kicking around the idea of taking my street art on the road.  I would like to see if I can get good
responses in other cities.  A real road trip will probably have to wait until next summer, but I would like to hit NYC and maybe get out west.

For more information on Ross' work, go to www.rossfordart.com. Or hit the streets of Miami Beach. There you will find Ross Ford, a welcome and beautiful work. Nice.

"The saturated colors represent the vibrant life of the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, and the juxtaposed layers of functions that co-exist in the architectural containers. The intention is to show these urban corners as they appear to the artist’s eye, in brightly contrasting blocks of colors, empty and filled with casual elements at the same time. Graffiti writings photographed separately are incorporated in the compositions as another element that is part of the urban vision, usually in the form of clouds. The iconic image is named “watertank”, to simply refer to the actual place where the experience of recognizing a situation happened to the artist."
+G Grippo

"In Utah I didn't know we could ever live like this. In Brooklyn, we watch each other through the windows when we first move in and then eventually ignore each other and go about our business. Naked."
+Lori Nelson

"This work was taken during a walk last year exploring the shore line of Williamsburg (Brooklyn)."
+steven bornholtz

"Brothers on route to a wedding at Eglise Baptiste D'Expression Francaise Church on Clermont Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn."
+betty alexandra bastidas

"In order to understand this all-too complex world I study different cultures in different communities. Photography is my medium and for three months I photographed a series called “Laundromat”, all the while observing a small slice of the daily grind of America at work. This photo essay gives the viewer a rare behind-the-scenes look at the lives of a Chinese husband and wife team, owners and operators of a local laundromat in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn."
+misty rice

"This image is from a series of photographs exploring the effects of delayed adulthood, a generational trait of some individuals in their late 20's and early 30's living in Brooklyn. These people have moved to New York to pursue careers in creative fields, opting to follow their ambitions over settling down into financially and emotionally stable careers, relationships, or starting families."
+linn edwards

"These works reflect the diversity of the new families visible on the streets of Brooklyn."
+lucy fradkin

"This is a picture of a Polish beauty salon next to a Chinese store in Bensonhurst, a traditionally Italian neighborhood that has seen a dramatic increase of Eastern European and Chinese immigrants in the past 15 years."
+tom russotti

"These photos are part of an ongoing series of the current and ever-changing face of Brooklyn, with a focus on children and the Latino population."
+erica mcdonald

"The vernacular urban fabric of New York City, the metaphorical language of paint/space, and the construction of vision in the artist/observer- these interests spiral through my work.

"This is a portrait of a girl in total calm. Being from Brownsville, Brooklyn, I wanted to show the kind of beauty and calm that can be found in what many people consider a "dangerous area" but is really a beautiful community."
+laylah amatullah barrayn

"Blender Project: This is about immigrants, communities and food culture in New York.

I have been researching how many communities exist in New York, visiting and taking pictures of the area, culture and get imported goods especially "food" that came from their countries at the local groceries store. Shot in Brighton Beach (former Soviet Union) neighborhood."
+hidemi sato

Lila Downs
La Sandunga
1997 Narada
     

Powerful album introduced a force of nature. Listen to this album, Its never too late for the 1st time.

So strange. So cute. So sweet. The original hipster. So neat. Nice.

Visit www.shusic.com to read more on Shu. Visit http://www.shusic.com/music.html to hear more from Shu.

A coming-of-age collection of stories revolving around three sisters in Uganda, Tropical Fish is a beautifully written account of the possibilities of life for women in this country during and after the reign of Idi Amin. The upper middle class Ugandan voices of the characters is not often covered in contemporary literature as many attempt to negate that there are upper middle class Africans. Baingana dispels this by telling stories of women like herself.

Wizard of the Crow
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
ISBN: 0-375-42248-X

Kenyan exile and activist Thiong’o’s latest, and what some say “epic,” novel is based on the fictional African nation Aburiria. This story illustrates the battle for the people of this nation’s very souls. Like a fictionalized and updated account of Frantz Fanon’s book Wretched of the Earth, this book notes the effect of globalization on Africa in the 20 th century. At over 700 pages this book is no small read in more ways than one.

Amazingly enough, after Oprah’s Book Club recommendation and the questionable made-for-television movie, this work by this author remains dynamic. The way Hurston painted her African American characters was starkly different from that of the characters of her Harlem Renaissance contemporaries. She floats between the oral language of African Americans and Standard English and records thoughts via third person narration. With clarity and precision, Hurston tells a breathless tale with beautiful three-dimensional characters who are as honest and true to themselves as she is to their speech and mannerisms.