i have but One Intention for this New Year, not to waste the energy the Ancestors and Elders placed in me. Selah

Although I’ve been quite fortunate over the course of this Average Life like maybe a bunch of other artists I’ve lost (and sacrificed) a lot during this ‘Walkabout’. My first pause was in MadWiz, and during one of their coldest winters on record, that’s where I met multi-instrumentalist/composer, Junior Dan.

I’d been introduced into the Madison Rastafarian Community by Rasta Jim aka Dr. Jim Rutke, a brilliant man with multiple advanced degrees, a Rastafarian scholar highly respected in the community who could read any number of ancient languages, e.g. Amharic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, etc.. As a NeKiT (New in Kid in Town). He knew the people to meet, and not meet. It just so happened that around this time the University had scheduled a big Reggae concert with Third World, Black Uhuru, Steel Pulse, Peter Tosh and Jimmy Cliff. It was to be the last concert performed by The Steppin’ Razor. Because of Rasta Jim’s deep connections to the community and UW he’d gotten me backstage access. This was actually my first major shoot ….. Reggae Legends, up until then all I’d shot was airplanes with sand and Arizona sunsets.

Post the concert hang I sent some of the images to Blackstar Photo Agency and the thought them good enough to suggest I go to Jamaica and shoot. So I decided to traipse off to Xamayca to photograph the Rastafarians. When I mentioned this to Rasta Jim he said to talk to Junior if I was heading ‘down Home’. We sat and vibed ending up with me agreeing to pick up Junior’s master tapes from Tough Gong Studios in Kingston. The trip to Guntown was me hanging off the back of a truck with goods of someone’s relative in the bed. When I arrived iMan was blessed to ‘sing Chalice’ with Sticky, Bob’s former drummer and body guard. For me the whole trip was magical beginning from the first day in Montego when I met the Rasta priest who said, “No man have to lock ‘im ‘air to be a Rasta. Rasta is in your Heart.” I was supposed to be there for 2 weeks it was 2 months before I returned, but that’s a tale for another time. And the negatives and positives from that era like a photo of Seaga and Manley (two of the Prime Ministers) shaking hands (absolutely RARE) are lost, but the Isitives remain.

It was either Fall or Winter in Wisconsin (like there’s a real difference ….. oh yeah one, snow instead of colored leaves on the trees), I’d pulled into a WalMart (Target) parking lot because I saw the sweetest, vintage, 1967 (I believe) Midnight Blue (for sure)Pontiac GTO. As I was pulling up a short guy with a goatee gets out with this coolass music following him. I rolled the window down greeting him and asked the appropriate questions. The sound was sort of helicoptery incorporating heavy duty, Classical organ ….. the keyboardist was ‘Yanni ‘Chryssomallis, it was 1979, and it was his demo tape. in a New York accent the guy said, “Take a seat and a listen.”, for the next fifteen minutes or so I was ‘transported’. Bruce returned and introduced himself as ‘Dr. Bjond’ inviting me to his home. I responded with a ‘Well I’m Dr. Stranj, and I’d love to.”. Thus was the beginning of a unique relationship and my introduction to Laser Group.

As we come upon Christmas one of my strong memories as a member of St. John the Divine’s choir is the sounds of voices, our voices, caroling, Norman Syme with his perfect pitch, Jan Opalach with his bass (as a ‘Tweener) creating foundation, the sound of the Cathedral, the smell of the hospital wards, lights of the Rainbow Room and Carnegie Hall. How I came to be a visual artist when everything pointed to Music is another tale, I did pass my audition to be admitted to NYC’s High School of Music and Art aka known as ‘FAME’, just living ‘An Average Life’ #AAL.

For some reason this time of year brings to mind a number of individuals some I’d like to call peers, several friends, and a very few mentors and even fewer muses. Among them is photographer/cinematographer/composer/poet/et al, Gordon Parks. My memory is having been introduced to him by Daniel Dawson (but it could have been MacArthur Fellow, sculptor and DWC grad Reggie Bradford, who gave me my first exhibition on the East Coast at Choate Rosemary Hall, or … come on was the ’80s), and over the course of about 2 decades I’d come to think of him as my grandfather. He was too cool with his cigarette holder and silk dressing gown. I was blessed to be able to call him up at a semi-reasonable (NY) hour and whine about the latest event in my life or visit if schedules permitted. In the ‘90s I was fortunate to orchestrate an exhibition of Gordon’s work sponsored by the Dallas ASMP at the Dallas Museum of Art and introduce him. One of the highlights in my life was sitting with him in his bedroom projecting transparencies and talking about the sequencing of images for ‘Arias in Silence’. When he graciously positioned himself for his i’Trait i placed him, arms crossed sans cigarette, under the chandelier in his living room, for me it was the $ shot.

In the course of this ‘walkabout’ I’ve been fortunate to have met a myriad of people (and even a few ‘uman bein’s) among them was Jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove in the ’80s in Dallas. He’d just received the trumpet from ‘Doc’ Severinsen, former band leader of Johnny Carson’s ‘Tonight Show’ and I was a member of the ACT-SO panel awarding scholarships to high school students. It was obvious even then that he was an outstanding talent. Other than his playing one of things that still stands out in my mind from our brief interaction was that he wanted to be “‘just like Miles'”.