Gina's Photos for the Fundraising Gallery

Gina took these photos are the San Francisco Farmer's Market. These are some amazing shots and I think they will go great in a kitchen or dining area. She did an amazing job with these. There is something about colorful food that always makes you hungry, right? Check out the Fundraising Gallery for all of them. I am posting a few on the main page, but the gallery will have the full list! Please enjoy and email us or leave comments, or let us know if you have any interest!

Thanks for checking these out and be sure to go to the Fundraising Gallery for the rest of them!

All work is copyrighted on this blog and these pieces are copyrighted to Gina Navarro Brown.

Four New Images to the Fundraising Gallery

I have added 4 new images to the Fundraising gallery. I hope people enjoy them. Be sure to email me if they generate any interest for you. You can click on the link off to the side to get there. As an update, I submitted two pieces to a juried exhibition here in the Bay Area to see how I do. I will let you all know if I get in and people can go see the show! Enjoy the rest of the images and let me know if they help generate any interest in fundraising.

Be sure to check out the Fundraising Gallery! Have a great day!

Jesse

Some New Work in the Fund Raising Gift Gallery

These are some of the pictures that we have up on the fund raising page to help with Gina's fund raising for cancer research and helping patients with cancer. Please come by, take a look, donate if you can, or repost! We appreciate your help! I will post new work as it goes up in the gallery! All the details are on that blog page.

Thanks so much!

Jesse (and Gina)

The Art of Motion

The Art of Motion is something that applies to both martial arts and to art. This example above is from a collaborative project that I did with a friend of mine years ago. Kenda Scott took the photo and it was included in an installation piece that we did for the Gallery of Alternative Space at CSU, Chico. I had approached Kenda about what we could do to show motion in martial arts and she had suggested an extended exposure of a single frame. If I remember correctly, my friend Eric Frank took either the prints and/or the negatives and blew them up and did some things in the photo lab to create a different look. If you look at the original print, you can tell it was definitely from a time when using a photo lab was more common than running your photos through a computer, although we did have that option at the time. While the piece in itself is able to stand alone, it is but a small part of an entire concept that spanned many disciplines of art from 3 dimensions, to 2 dimensions, to sound, to photography, to aspects of architecture.

What I really like about this piece is how it shows movement and contrast y- 2 things that are very important to me in art. I am still trying to find new ways to push this in my art. The two ideas by themselves can say a lot. When combined with other ideas, it can be a powerful vehicle for story telling and sharing visual ideas.

As for the part about martial arts, I like how it shows so many lines of movement that recall the design of the Universal Symbol from Kenpo. There are so many planes of movement, this is what makes Kenpo such a diverse art, among other things, of course. It is also another reminder, for me, of just how deep the connection of art and martial arts can run...yet another idea avenue to explore, if I can just find the time!

Enjoy and thanks for stopping by.

Jesse

The Way of the Warrior - The Art of Training





One of the things that I learned as I was away this summer was that your environment can heavily influence the way you think and appraoch things. Also, environment can influence the way you train. Just from a physiological and psychological stand point, your mind is cleared when you are away and can focus yourself. Martial arts on the beach, at sunset, was a very fun experience for me. I think it is important to find these places that transport you to allow yourself to be able to take your training to a different level. In my time away, I was not able to train as much as I would have liked, but I enjoyed the psychological break, which is important for maintaining perspective.

While I was out there training, however, it was a unique experience. The peacefulness and quiet allowed for me to feel transported and experience new kind of focus. Also, the feeling the sand beneath my feet, I was given a new experience in how to negotiate a different kind of surface. There are also other surfaces to that you can experience to give training variety. variety in training keeps you sharp and gives you different experiences to draw from. This is important. Sometimes we get into routines and forget to allow ourselves to experience other things. Each new experience is a chance for new knowledge. That is an important concept in many ways.

The photo posted here looks peaceful and the experience was every bit of what the photos is saying to the viewer. It was an amazing moment. Carrying moments like this one with me are invaluable for so many reasons. I strongly recommend that anybody interested in bringing variety to what they do or train try changing up their environment to some place that is different and more peacful. It will bring some much needed refreshment. It did for me.

Just a note about the photo - this photo is taken by my wife at sunset. Gina is becoming very good with her camera. I have appreciated her efforts to photograph my martial arts endeavors to help with the blog here. A special thanks to her for helping out!

Have a good day!

Jesse

More on the Urban Forest

I find myself constantly looking at the city around me and thinking of the ways we try to bring nature closure to us, no matter how big the city we live in. Living in the Bay Area, I see it everywhere I go. In San Francisco, where I took the above picture, I saw some vines growing up the side of this building, and it was purposeful. It reminded me of back home, in Chico, where vines and undergrowth dominate the park that is close to the university. Here you can see a pale reflection of a tree just past the ivy. Green cities just are not that prevalennt, and I wish we could see more elements of a 'forest' in our cities' designs. However, I do appreciate the feel of those cities that are successful in blending urban and natural elements to make the city more comfortable for us all.

Here is another one in the series idea of Water and Stone. I always appreciate running water whever I can find it. This location by the Ferry building was great. I can't wait to sit down and make some art from some of these photos...it will be exciting. Hope you all like the photos.

A work in progress



This is a piece that I started some time ago and I picked it up again to finish it. I am finding that I started several pieces several months ago, and now I can see them in a better light, after some time away. This one is also more complex just because I had more room to work. the other pieces were 2.5 x 3.5 inches, this one is 6 x6 inches. So, this is much bigger. I have several pieces I am working on now, trying to finish. This is the one that is furthest along at the moment. I like it because it definitely changes things up from some of the recent ones I have posted about. I have tried to mix in some different color patterns, as well as differnt shapes. This piece has a strong reflection of my trips to Panama. The ruins Old Panama, as well as the prevalence of the bright birds and the rainforest are both strong. I was strongly influenced by how amazed I was by visiting a country with a tropical rainforest for the first time. Spending time in the rainforest is an experience unlike any other...and I highly recommend everyone to take advantage of the opportunity to visit a tropical rainforest if they get the chance to. I will try to post more new stuff soon. It has been incredibly busy lately, so I have been slow the last couple of days.

-Jesse