“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
— Cesar A. Cruz, poet, activist, educator
Hello. Thank you so much for visiting. I’m an artist and writer based in the beautiful Monterey Bay area on the scenic central coast of California.
Using traditional wet and dry artists’ media, digital images or comic art, I create provocative art that draws from personal experiences, dreams and altered states to challenge viewers’ assumptions of what is real and normal.
Following in the ancient traditions of artists as storytellers and truthsayers of the tribal community, I combine visual images and words. My work aims to subvert the dominant culture of inequality, whether that culture is reflected in politics, daily life or what passes for entertainment.
Please visit my portfolio to browse or purchase original fine art and prints.
Work that I can’t quite shoehorn into the gallery collections of trauma and transcendence might show up in my blog. I invite and welcome your comments.
Failure to Communicate
PAINTINGS
This juried exhibition sponsored by Emerging Artists Alliance of Monterey and The Pearl Works features the 2D work of local emerging artists from Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz Counties. Art Opening will be Friday, May 24th at 6:00 PM.
Two of my works are among those selected for Pacific Grove Public Library exhibit OURSELVES WE SING: A call and response with Walt Whitman and our understanding of our American Democracy beginning 10/6/2023, juried by Christine Crozier, PGPL Library Curator. Closing reception Friday, January 5, 2024 5:30pm-7:00pm.
A ‘geometry’ themed group exhibition opens at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts on January 13, 2023. I’ll debut a new work. The artists’ closing reception is on Saturday, February 18, 3-5 pm.
My Arts Council for Monterey County grant-funded portraiture project is the featured cover story of the Spring 2024 Aspire Advocate, the online and print newsletter of the Aspire Health Plan.
Jean Vengua, Filipinx American artist, writer, poet and activist, edits The Eulipion Outpost, a newsletter accessible on substack which explores the diverse real lives of creative artists and musicians. In Issue #115 she presented me with “Six Questions”.
As an Asian American I’m honored to have been requested to exhibit alongside seven excellent African American artists for Black History Month.
on local artists responding to the challenges…
Karen Warwick’s upcoming solo exhibition, including our…
Dennis Taylor interviewed me in an excellent…
Jeannie Evers wrote a very favorable article …
Through a generous grant from the Arts Council of Monterey County my project Boomers of Monterey County will allow me to apply my unique visual style to portraits of an aging demographic that represents nearly a quarter of the U.S. population – a demographic in which I also belong.
I am honored to be among the twenty-two emerging and established artists receiving the Arts Council for Monterey County Individual Artist Grant for 2023.
Longtime followers can remember that for years the website URL was “emcanimator.com”.
Taking an art-making break for some much needed art-seeing…
2023's art began with weeks of overthinking and a mess of a false start, which came grinding to a halt when I abandoned a painting for the first time in three years. This ever happen to you? It’s kind of like the way life’s been until now.
The triggering of memories didn’t stop there, though. Dick Cheney and his weapon of mass destruction was forgotten as I felt an urge to revisit another Aerosmith music video, one I hadn’t listened to in many years…
An essay on toxic masculinity inspired by the Twitter duel between environmental activist Greta Thunberg and self-avowed misogynist Andrew Tate
The new emcanimator.com is live!
Her painting Song of Artemis is also there with others…
…a preview of upcoming changes…
Hey guys, I'm very pleased to announce…
With gratitude I'm extremely pleased to announce…
After five-and-a-half months at the Dalí…
…I realize now that subtle and sublime may not be enough…
The house in Seaside, California had been my mother’s home…
In July a great man departed this mortal time and space…
we need examples and models of sensitive, nurturing good men…
doing research on all aspects of how comic art is actually made…
“…to pervert or corrupt by an undermining of morals…
…There’s an age-old sickness in our society that…
My first exhibition of 2024 is at the Arc Gallery in San Francisco. This is a juried national group exhibition with the theme Fantasy. Art opening and reception will be on Saturday, May 11th, 2024, 7 - 9 PM PST.