New Bio Brief

This is the short artist biography/statement that I am offering online galleries and networking sites that I am joining:

:::
A photographer raised, corrupted, and redefined in Southeast Michigan, Joey has always had an eye for the uncanny, peculiar, and extraordinary characteristics of the typically ordinary. He deconstructs the stories narrated by his imagination, and reconstructs them in the eyes of his camera. The ultimate image paints a perspective one would often never have otherwise seen.

In my own words, I am a pathological observer of my environment and my mind who carefully chooses the moments he shares with the world.
:::

What do you think?

By the way, so far I can be found at...
Saatchi Gallery
Fine Art America
Art Gallery Worldwide
... with more to come soon.

GOrGEOUS!

Resilience

I've been feeling knocked down a lot lately,
but I get back up.
I always get back up.
It has been difficult.. recently.

Not knowing how many times
I'll be knocked down this hard
before it gets easier:
that is difficult.

Getting up is what to do though.
I'll keep it up,
getting up,
hopefully long enough.

Soon I expect the falls won't feel so heavy.
Eventually every hit won't knock me down.
Someday soon I will be as strong again as I was not long ago.
You'll see.
I hope you'll see.. because I know I will.

If I Had a Jet

If I had a jet, I could live in it.
I could sleep in a jet bed. (Maybe a round one on a rotating frame.)
I could shower 30,000 feet in the air.
I could host jet parties miles up.
I could fly anywhere in the world,
  and wake up in a different city every morning
    ...if I wanted to, that is.
Because I could also wake up in one spot every morning,
  and then take off after breakfast.
I could go to the beach on any coast.
I could go to a photo shoot in Iceland and in Aruba in the same day.
I could stop for lunch in Tokyo on my way to Hong Kong.
I could pick up a date in my jet. That could be impressive.
I could take many friends on vacation,
or just get away, fly away, by myself when I need a break from the world.
I could go up in the sky just to find a moment of peace
  and think for a while about...
    whatever I felt like.
I could do a lot of things if I had a jet.
But I do not. Yet.
So until I do I will have to use my imagination.







(also if i had a jet i might want a space ship...)

Accidental Hero Vs. Accidental Villian

Today I did some yard work at my friend's house. (When you are poor and struggling for work, friends hire you to help out a bit... and this helps you out a bit.) So I did quite a bit of magifying some bushes and grasses.

Among the taller-than-me bushes I found grapevines abundant. They were covering - no, blanketing the brush, which was fighting just to earn some light. Oh, but the grapes were young and not quite ripe. This posed a dilemma. I did not have trouble deciding... the baby grapes and choking vines must go. So I cut them away - most of them - and tore them from their deadly grasp on the branches. I saved the bushes, but..!!

While I was recklessly and aggressively tearing away vines, I failed to recognize a bird's nest in the tall branches... until I had gone and knocked two infant barely-feathered sparrows from the nest. I noticed them lying on the ground after they began chirping. They could not fly. Their eyes barely opened. They could only but thrust their legs about and cry for help.

I was afraid to touch them, but had to return to them to their nest or they would die. I went to the garage. I gloved my hands up, and found a small nest-sized garden shovel. The birds were lying in some pile of dead leaves. Hopefully this broke their fall and not their fragility. I delicately scooped each up sliding one then the other into their crib overhead.I hope my non-skin interference in the rescue didn't taint their motherbird away from them.

I think I saved these birdlings today, though I also almost killed them. I hope I did not. This could make me a bad person... a little bit.... or at least careless.

Why Measure Age in Years? ...and who's counting?

It seems that the harder I try to forget my birthday - and how young I am each year - the more people remember it, and try to remember it, and make it a bigger deal than it needs to be. I feel like my birthday's become about the number.

I have a strange fascination in claiming to be 23 years old (or young.) After all, it was a great age to be. While it's all in good fun, some I know are put off by this as if I were playing a game reserved for older women,,, or somehow, staying young.

I do retain immature features -- a "baby face," clumsiness, a youthful sense of humor... and for those who know me well, often enough a sense of behavior close to half my actual age. Yet I can be a growed up when I so chose. Hell, I can often volunteer to play the selfless leader. (shameless plug of pride) See. Maturity at work, right?

I want all of you to know: while I am a man with fears - some of which I can admit and others I hide - I am not afraid to age. In fact, I relish in earning wrinkles, gaining wisdom, and counting days until something else happens. I cannot wait to turn 50. I cannot wait to tell grandchildren stories. I enjoy living, growing, aging...

To be quite honest, I think it's the waiting that seems to bother me. When life is moving slow, when there is little going on - eventlessness - I tend to notice that I'm getting older.. and without doing something, or being productive, or earning the life I've been offered.
Because, after all, time is not money, it's priceless.
And I feel I need to make the most of it all.
I ought to earn my hours and my breaths. Oughtn't I?

Who's counting years anyway? I'd rather my age be counted in good deeds,, in which case, I'm relatively old.
Maybe in the thousands of deeds... perhaps a million deeds old.

Luxuries Hold Me Back

I am more productive when I do not have luxuries at my disposal. The comforts of life relax me. When I am amidst them, I feel content to the degree that I do not have to earn them.

For example... my parents' house, where I currently live, is always air conditioned, very cool beyond the point of comfort. I definitely never sweat in this household. In fact, often enough I am cold.
This luxury relaxes me; it slows me down. I complete work, but at a slower pace, later, and seemingly with more effort.
If I lived in a hot apartment with, at best, a fan, I think I would try harder. I think I would want to work to improve my situation. I would gain a perspective on life of the things I could have versus the things I do not.
You know, my work may even be better. And in fact, it has been.

I want to get a part time job (in a creative field, of course) in Ann Arbor I think. I want to get a place out that way with little luxuries. I want to take care of myself. I want to begin working harder... and producing more art, better art.

I Want to Be a Magician When I Grow Up

I want to perform illusions that dazzle people. I want to have incredible secrets that no one can decipher. I want to create ideas that no one could ever imagine. I want to show you all things you would never believe.

And I will.
You'll see.
But you will not believe.

Have You Ever Watched a Movie and You Just Don't Want to Stop Watching It?

..you just don't want it to end? The story is so good,, or so real..
i was watching Half Nelson. I like this movie.
It is really intense, and intensely real.

It makes me feel.
(this is the most important thing a story can do to someone.)
Sometimes the story seems so real_
  I feel the same feelings that the characters feel...
joy, pain, courage, fear, sympathy, weakness, passion, anger, love..

I wish more people could be as expressive as actors are.

.

Noodle Brain Is In My Head

I am so exhausted and worn from working on film reshoots the past five days that my brain feels like a noodle..-- a long noodle dropped into a pile and packed together, then placed in the top empty part of my head, and filled with happy thoughts, but also taught to let my body know when it needs to rest (and sleep... during the night... for a reasonable amount of time.)

PS, yall. I'm tired

Sixteen Hour Film Shoots Make My Muscles Cry

physically exhaiste
mentaly exhausted
emotively exhaieist
my feet hurt
my nose hurt
my thy hurt
my ankle hurt
my butt hurt
my arm-
my self hurt, and my soul hert
beguin 1230 -> end 430 (leave home 12noon -> come home 5AM)
my muscles cry all day uintil there id nothing left in thie weeping glands...
ill tri harder next time , poppy
love joey

I Love to Make Movies

I just got home from the first of four days of reshooting/additional shooting for a movie I've been helping make for some time. Obviously - or not so much - it is the middle of the night. I still am amidst my fourth wind of the day, so I chose to exclaim about how I loved being on a set again today.

I love being creative. I love to solve the problem of how to make the story look best. I love to make pictures especially when they move.
I love the camaraderie of friends working together on something we enjoy and share a passion for. I love that we do it when many doubt that we can. I love that we do it here and now, in Michigan, as young adults, without hesitation, and because we believe that we've earned the right to do what we do.

I love making movies.
(and i love you.)

How Can I Organize This So More People WIll Read More of What I Write Here?

I'm thinking reformat the layout so it looks more like a news webpage. Then I can designate posts to specific topics, or columns. And I can make pages to navigate to where multiple posts of the week are archived.

Maybe I need to chill on how much I write. Somedays I don't feel like writing, but most I feel like posting a lot. And people do not usually scroll south on the page to find some of the interesting stuff when the post at the top is kind of lame... like this one.

While I'm thinking, here is a pretty picture to look at:

If I Could Fly..

..maybe I would get bored of being up in the air so much.
It'd look nice for a while, but who would hang out with me up there.
I hope flying into outer space won't make me feel this way.Perhaps I'll make that trip a short one.

Recent Infrequency of Me

.woh...
When I actually get a regular job, keeping up with this all-too-frequent-ness of this story is going to be hard. I take a week("-ish") to mourn the loss of my Buick - which will become a part of this Detroit Dream Project. Then this week I am working on prep and reshooting of some scenes for a film. I am having trouble making time to tell the world about my adventures and thoughts,,, or thoughts and adventures,,, one or the other.
If my life, in fact, becomes all too frequent, I'm afraid this blog will... un-become... it... (all too frequent, that is.)

Will yous miss me more then?