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We attended the annual Edible Garden Tour in Loyal Heights, where residents open their yards for a day. We sign in at the Loyal Heights Community Center and receive a map. My favorite garden was not lush or well-tended but an overgrown patch planted in a defunct driveway.

On Sunday, we go to a wedding near Kingston, WA. We take the ferry from Edmonds. I sit and watch the dark green water, jade in the crest, and nebulous islands in the offing. The slate-colored horizontal slivers of land remind me of Clyfford Still paintings.

PH-128, 1948

In Kingston, we kill time walking on NE State Highway 104, where tourists buy ice cream, coffee, and seaside bric-a-brac. A property management company caters to seasonal homeowners. Idle traffic waits for the next ferry off the island. A ferry worker brusquely directs confused but frustrated drivers to the back of the line.

Once outside the shopping district, we pass wavy open fields, sylvan patches, and clustered split levels with Home Depot deck furniture and aluminum siding.

The wedding is on a dirt road, and we park in a grass field. A lavender field is meticulously manicured, leading to a gazebo for wedding photos that are already dated. The grounds have a ranch-style house and event area. Guests arrive and are directed to a pond and the bottom of a hill where the ceremony will occur. Staff tests music, mics, and speakers and chills the whites and cucumber water.

The wedding is interfaith with a mix of Jewish and Christian traditions. When we talk to a Jewish attendee, sadly, she poses the question, “Jewish star in or out?”

***

Weed Woman was hacking away in the herbaceous borders of a Ballard Craftsmen when she heard the clang of metal. She picked up a gold-colored object that turned out to be an unused bullet. The headstamp of the bullet said S & B, 23, 9 x 19. “S & B” stands for Sellier & Bellot, a firearms manufacturer in the Czech Republic. “23” could reference the year it was produced or the production factory location. On a list of headstamp codes, 23 is listed as:

Unknown Factory, Hungary, Probably now associated with Magyar Löszergyártó Kft., Mátravidéki Fémmüvek, H-332 Sirok, Hungary

“9 x 19” is a 9mm bullet for Glock-style pistols.

Meet The Supremes

Maria Banda Memorial

NE 125th Street & 28th Ave NE

The inspiration for this art project is to memorialize a beloved member of the Lake City Senior Center, Maria Banda, whom a hit-and-run driver killed in 2019. Her passing hastened the installation of a crosswalk and pedestrian traffic signal proposed by the community to improve pedestrian safety. The art depicts Maria providing a safe passage for future pedestrians across NE 125th Street. In Maria’s Mexican culture, marigold flowers symbolize “grief” traditionally displayed during religious ceremonies and Día de los Muertos.

The project was funded by the Raynier Foundation and the Rotary Club of Seattle NE. Thank you for your generous support in bringing awareness to pedestrian safety. A special thanks to Lake City art instigator Mark Mendez who continues to bring local art to the streets of Lake City.

Heart Monitor

I found this wheat-pasted poster on a metal electrical pole in Greenwood next to an apartment building with ground-level vanancies and a tent encampment blocking a sidewalk. Commercial mixed-use real estate promised activation, foot traffic, business, and convenience.

The shopping district is a lacuna.

The black-and-white image reads HEART MONITOR. The decaying building and glitch esthetic look totalitarian. There is no information, link, or QR code to direct the passing viewer.

The poster is on SDOT metal. It has a short shelf life. There is a war for real estate on poles - the ruins of rusted staples and ripped paper corners preserved with packing tape.

I looked up the name on Spotify. There is a song called “Metaphor”. The copyright for the music says “2022 harvardbookclub.”

I google “harvardbookclub,” and find a website with the same name. The website features a creative named Yung Durr from Koreatown, Los Angeles. The marketing is urban, DIY with slick web design.

Yung Durr also has YouTube and SoundCloud channels featuring many videos and music projects with minimal clicks, sometimes in the single digits.

The democratization of creative tools and the hegemony of the algorithmic mob feed an abusive cycle of digital self-worth, hate, and violence. Today, the violence is present but quiet. The streets offer respite from the internet.

Finding this artist first in the physical world (flyer on a telephone pole) and then digitally (Spotify, Youtube) is called “phygital convergence” -the tactile and digital worlds intersecting in a hybrid reality.

Young saplings dead outside new townhouses. Wooden tree stakes support brittle limbs like stockades

Cell Collision

Cell Collision is a collection of digital studies that meditates on technology, nature, capitalism, human identity, and their ligamentous relationships. Now available on issuu.

Triggers Now Available For Digital Download

Triggers is a collection of meditations on memory and identity in a digital age. I use various media -digital and analog-to create a meaningful and cohesive document for an elusive future. Grammarly, an AI-powered app, edited text. Slidebook provided the layout. It’s available as a digital download on Issuu for $1.99.

To purchase Triggers.

Seattle Drawn available For Digital Download

I have been documenting Seattle through digital drawings since 2016, when I relocated with my family from New York State. Seattle Drawn is a 244-page collection of those drawings. It is currently available as a digital download for only $1.99. A limited-edition print run is planned in the coming months.

To purchase Seattle Drawn.

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