"Bones" with Dangerous Signs for Video Project

I and the cast of Dangerous Signs presented my original ASL poem titled "Bones" at National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) in Panara Theatre about 2 months ago. We had to perform this poem several times for the professional videographers to get everything right in different angles, views, lighting, and so forth. This project is for making a real high quality video of Dangerous Signs for marketing purposes. 

Here are great photos, credited to Avi. You can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Hearing Aid, Heart, Deaf and Gay Identity Drawing

I created this work about a month ago. Hadn't had a chance to put that work into this blog. It's color pencils on a white paper. Took me about 2 weeks to complete. The hearing aid was possible to draw because I used my real hearing aid as a reference. I also used my hand as a reference to draw the hands. I found photos of the lips and the ear online to use as references to draw them. As you see, I had to rely on these things as references to make them look right proportionally and so forth, which do help a lot, than trying to remember how they look in my mind. The heart was just simple heart-shaped and only added the shades and lights for forms. I then used rainbow colors on the background for my gay pride, according to my identity as much as being hard of hearing or deaf, whichever anyone can call me, as I don't mind being called either one. This work conveys the message upon my love, pride, and experience of relying on lip reading, the ear, the hearing aid, and the hands (American Sign Language). Henceforth, here is the work below.

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Statue of David

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This project took me about 2 weeks to complete. It's color pencils on color paper. I have a 2 foot tall marble sculpture of Statue of David in my living room, set on the floor. I used that as a reference. I relied on my right hand to use as a reference for the hand drawing. I then found a photo of Earth online to use as a reference to draw the Earth. The most challenging experience was trying to draw planet Earth which I have never done before. It took me a while to figure out how to do the clouds and landscapes, make the planet 3-D, and make it work behind the statue. The hand was a challenge as I had to make sure the fingers are proportional and the shape of the hand is correct as possible. The other obstacle I had to overcome is how to make the Earth and the statue distinguishable, for they both got muddled up and looked confusing. I had to draw the white outline around the sculpture and the hand. That solved the problem. If you look closer, you'd notice something in the statue's ear: it's a hearing aid. Henceforth, it's a message on deafness identity. The rainbow beams coming out of his eyes refers to gay identity. The hand shows someone's desire to touch him. Enjoy!

Drawings

These are color pencil drawings that I created. There are several science fiction themed work plus gay pride issue and deaf culture subject matter: "Deaf Aliens", "Rainbow-Winged Dude", "Android and Robot in the Lab", "Virtual Reality Traveling", "Alien Animal on Orange Planet", and lastly (currently working on it and not completed yet) "Deaf-Love-Pride". Enjoy those photos. You can click on them in order to see them bigger.

Robot in the City

I have been working on this science fiction drawing for about a month long. It was tough with the buildings with all of those windows and trying to make them look straight as possible with no ruler or anything to draw perfect lines with. This work is done with color pencils on a red color paper. It's also a challenge to make the robot look metallic and shiny as best that I can make. The eyes were tough to somehow make them glow behind the dark black eye screen. The yellow van parked behind the robot seems a little flat, but I wanted to make it fade away and less important than the robot. So are the buildings behind the van. The clouds are even very faint in the sky. This helps make the robot stand out more and shows the distance as well. Enjoy the image and you can click on it to enlarge it.

Wood Carving of Nude Man

I realized that I have the little wood carving tools that my father gave me for Christmas left somewhere in my apartment and wanted to do the carving. I found them in the storage room downstairs and brought them up. My landlord's wood pieces were left here and there near my artwork stuff in the storage room. I found a good square one and brought that up. I have an old gay porno magazine that I left, not looked at for along time, and found one image of a nude guy. I cropped down to just his chest/stomach area on the sketchbook with a pencil. I then used the image on the sketchbook as a reference on a square wood piece. I then began to carve. What a real challenge. I have never carved an image of a nude man with forms, shapes, shadows and etc before. I did carve a nude man with just the outlines of the body on another wood a while ago. It took me a while to figure out how to create the form of the chest, stomach, nipples, and etc, chipping here and there. Once I was done with carving, I then applied water color paint. Oh, yeah, another challenge as I had to figure out how to make the forms, shades, lights, and etc look just about right on the male figure. 

Here is the photo of the work. You can click on the image in order to see it bigger.

Graphic Art of a Nude Man

I created this nude man in PhotoShop. Originally, the image of the male body was painted on a glass with acrylic paint a while ago as a graduate student at Rochester Institute of Technology. I just put that male body glass painting on the scanner and scanned it into my computer. I then changed the colors of the body into purplish/bluish hues/tones. I also scanned a small jewel ball, the blue square-shaped plastic jewel stickers that you put on your face for parties or halloween or whatever, the Mardi Gras necklace, and the thin paper flowers in rainbow order which used to be a necklace, given to me by someone at the pride parade. I then put those scanned things into the computer and arranged them around and over the male figure the way I wanted them to be. I have a photo of a rainbow flag, saved in a folder, and put that into the male figure. Henceforth, it's an image that conveys upon gay pride and celebration. 

Here is the photo and you can click on the image in order to see it bigger.

2 Graphic Art Images

I recently got a copy machine, given by my mother, that have a scanner in it. The scanner allows me to scan the images or objects, which can be sent into my MacAir laptop wirelessly. Henceforth, I was able to create two new graphic art projects. I used PhotoShop to manipulate the work after they were scanned.

The first is titled "Forlorn Woman". I scanned the picture of a female model (who was indeed a model for RIT art classes when I was a graduate student back then). I had a digital camera, provided by a professor in Painting class, and asked the model to pose the way you see in the picture (be forlorn with her face in her hand). I then put the picture of the model into RIT's Mac computer in the painting studio (back in 1995) and added computer chips, smoke stacks, building with windows, and etc around her in PhotoShop. I then printed it out of the printer that had wax colors in it. That print-out had been left untouched in a folder. I rescanned it in my current scanner and put that into MacAir laptop. I then scanned the objects, which were 4 small mirror circles and 2 bluish glass circles. I then added them to the image of the model/building. It was a challenge to blend them with transparency, color matching, and so forth. I then added PhotoShop's one pattern I like, then added "glass" effect on the pattern to distort them more plus match the color. Here is the completed work below and you can click on the image to make it bigger.  

The second project is titled "Hands Tree". I had a print out of the amazon female person in a tree with hands as leaves above her. It was left untouched in a folder, too. I created that work a few years ago for a lobby design project at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf for their one theatrical production. I scanned my hand and copied them a lot to make them become leaves. The body of the tree and its roots/branches, I just drew them in PhotoShop. The amazon female was found online, but I changed the shape of her, her color, and so forth. It's not exactly how it looked originally found online. I scanned this picture into my MacAir laptop then cleaned up a few things in the photo in PhotoShop. I then scanned an old hearing aid I no longer wear and got it into MacAir. I matched the color in PhotoShop's "Color Balance" tool, made it more transparent, copied the image of the hearing aid and flipped it around. Henceforth, two hearing aids exist, one on the bottom left and the other on the bottom right. I also spray painted the white glow on and around the hearing aids to make them glow. Here is the image below and you can click on the image to see it bigger.

DJ-ASL Poetry Performance at Lovin' Cup

On Saturday, February 28th, 2015, I performed as DJ WildPoet at Lovin' Cup in Henrietta, NY (Rochester). It was for the 7th year of Def Meets Deaf Poetry Jam, which enables deaf/hard of hearing and hearing poets/performers take turns on stage throughout the event. The unique approach of the performances, using American Sign Language and English, the deaf and hearing worlds together, appears to become popular. The audience was jammed. Great poets and performers such as Vicki Norquist, John Roche, Eric Epstein, Dangerous Signs (ASL performance group), Lori Nolesco, and more plus few more joined during the open mic at the end of the event. 

As regards to my performance, I DJed the music during the warm-up when the audience came in from 2 PM to 2:30 PM - mostly playing famous musicians like Blondie, Daft Punk, and etc. Afterwards, when Dangerous Signs were called, I jumped in and performed my original electronic music/poem titled "Blade Grey Sky" through my DJ device, but there were no sound manipulations or tricks, just regular playing. The group acted and did physical movements while I translated the words along the tune. 

Here is a photo of myself and Dangerous Signs during "Blade Grey Sky" performance.

When I was up to perform by myself, I translated my original poems titled "Rebellion" and "Where's Molly?" into ASL and manipulated the sound effects with my DJ device. Lastly, I translated Bjork's "Pluto" song into ASL and did the DJ sound effects. To my surprise, the DJ device or my laptop, somehow, messed up the playing and I had to stop. I informed the audience that I will return to do that song when it gets fixed. Later, I returned with a solution and was able to perform the whole Bjork "Pluto" song successfully. 

Here is a YouTube video of my DJ-ASL performance of two poems "Rebellion" and "Where's Molly?":

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC--8Y0Cb1tGGhm1Nj2ewPHQ

All in all, the president of Just Poet, came over to me and asked for my contact information. I gave him my DJ WildPoet business card and he gave me his business card. He is interested in contacting me for future performance. This is a good networking opportunity. 

I shall thank Lovin' Cup for providing the space for the show and John Roche for collaborating with me. I also shall thank Miriam Lerner and the interpreting students for interpreting the hearing and deaf/hard of hearing performers' work throughout the show. Lastly, I shall thank the hearing and deaf/hard of hearing performers for taking their time to show their creative work. 

DJ at German House for Rochester Community Players 90th Anniversary Celebation

On January 19th, I was hired to DJ for Rochester Community Players' 90th Anniversary Celebration at the German House. Here are the experiences I got when DJ-ing there. 

They were going to show a silent movie that was made in 1927 by the Rochester Community Players members 90 years ago. I DJ-ed before and after the movie. Yet, the president of Rochester Community Players didn't say what kind of music I should play and I had no idea what some of the audience's reactions were going to be. It turned out that some of them did not like the kind of music I was playing (some due to older generations and some due to expecting jazz, swing, and big bands - 1920's- music), which I had to tell them that I did not have with me. I had only modern electronic music and current famous musicians' work.It was intriguing and a mixed bag kind of performance for me. Yet, yes, there were many that admired my work, who comprehended the kind of 21st Century modern kind of DJ-ing that is happening lately, which is where my work is heading into. 

Here are two photos of me DJ-ing at the event.

Also, my Serato Intro software that goes along with my Numark Pro 2 DJ device crashed about 4 times and I had to quickly get my DJ-ing back on. I have no idea why and I just e-mailed to Serato Intro company Support Team to explain the situation and hopefully I will find out what I need to do to solve the problem soon.

All in all, regardless of having a cold, I had fun with good snacks and a cake. Did some American Sign Language performances along the lyrics that came on during my DJ-ing besides just regular instrumental DJ-ing. There was a good number of deaf/hard of hearing audience that showed up. Many of them are my friends from Dangerous Signs and other theatrical productions I was involved with. Some of them came up and danced in front of me. 

I would like to thank Peter Scribner for hiring me and the whole Rochester Community Players for giving me the opportunity.

DJ Performance for Soiree in the Penguin Ballroom

On January 8th, 2015, I will be DJ-ing as DJ WildPoet for Riley Beats' Soiree in the Penguin Ballroom. It's located on 389 Gregory Street in the city of Rochester. Two other DJs will do their tunes after my show. My show will start at 7 PM. It's a free public event with suggested donations and low-priced pizzas, sodas/bottles of water, and glowsticks. People who show up usually play with their hoops or spin the LED lights around during the DJ events there. The Penguin Ballroom is a large, spacious room and it is really beautiful. See the photo to get an idea. I suggest to click on this photo to see it bigger.

As DJ WildPoet, I will play my own original composed electronic music. I will also play several well-known musicians' work. I will play well-known musician's work along my own work, synced, together. I will also sync two famous musician's work or two of my own work simultaneously. When the words or lyrics come up, I will translate them into American Sign Language (ASL) plus do the acting/facial/physical moves. When there are no words or lyrics in the tunes, I will just DJ and do the creative sound tricks or manipulations. 

Henceforth, my DJ performance may be different than most of the DJs since hardly any knows how to translate the words/lyrics into ASL and do the acting/physical/facial performances. I have been trained to act in theaters for a while plus an ASL poet and a performing artist for a long time. My hope is to inspire the audience to appreciate the unique DJ performance I can offer and spread the word to others, which could enhance my chance to DJ more out to the public. I would like to thank Riley Beats for offering me an opportunity to DJ for his Soiree DJ events at the Penguin Ballroom.