The Big Bang : A Children's Story

The artwork I create always has a message. Whether it is happiness or something dark and dangerous; I would like the viewer to be moved, even if imperceptibly by what they see. Lately, I find myself wanting to impart a deeper meaning with my work, not just entertain visually but rev the imagination. I have always myself interested about the earth and the universe and have struggled on how to use my art as a vessel for furthering others' education.

When I was growing up, mainstream media did not expose us to educational matter often, and when there is a program it is more often for an older audience. My parents thought it was important for us to read, and watched TV, it was tuned to PBS and National Geographic.
There certainly isn't a concentration on anything educational especially with the "so popular it's scary" reality TV phenomenon. We need to engage young children and youth with literature, and TV culture shouldn't entertain, but educate. Waves of new technology are slowly removing the need to think. Unless you are a genius, geek or nerd, what use is there is using my brain? Western 'nouveau' culture is ignoring intelligence as an asset, and doesn't encourage it.
I rue the day that Reading Rainbow stopped being a favorite among parents and children.

And as I was drawing a 'black hole' I got an idea; I would create a series that would intrigue children; wet their curiosity into learning more. Stories about the 'The Big Bang' and 'Mom wasn't a monkey' would be read at nighttime, along with stories about sharing, and using the potty. I really think that children have the capacity to learn complex subjects, if it is presented in a manner that they can connect with and understand. Using language and imagery properly is key to helping developing minds grow.

Current Project:
Illustrating and co/writing with M.K.Hector, a series of children's books for primary level eduction.

Series I Subject Matter:
the Universe, all inclusive.

Book I Synopsis: Our first book will be about the Birth of the Universe, beginning with the Big Bang. The narratives will be based on science, not religious beliefs about how the universe was created.
The illustrations are based on the scientific concepts and drawn in a manner that makes the Big Bang seems magical, if not celestial. Drawing the universe's interactions in a manner that are familiar with a child's mind.

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Do you think that primary levels are too young to learn about the Big Bang? Evolution?
How about our relationship with nature? Symbiotic versus Parasitic?
Would you read this series at bed time to your children?
What are your thoughts in general on this creative project?
What other 'adult' and 'complex' subjects do you read to your children?
What would you want to read to your children?
What do you consider 'age appropriate'?

The more they know, the more they grow.

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If I lived in a different world

1. Fast food chains of the western world in a joint effort, proceed with plans to build biodiesel plants to dispose of bio-waste. Fuel your body and car in one fowl swoop. HAHAHA. They would require suppliers and transport to be solely fueled on biodiesel, reducing the demand on biofuels ending a famine and food shortage crisis that converting corn to ethanol has only increased.

2. Red meat would not be served at every meal, and consumers would make an effort to eat antibiotic-free, non-irradiated (that radiation treated meat), naturally fed animals. You would buy locally farmers who insure their livestock lived as they used to, and eat foods that are natural to their diet. Governments would step in and make it illegal to 'fatten' livestock by feeding them foods that unnatural to them. Cows would eat grass, not protein-laden grains. They wouldn't have allowed the beef industries to feed cows unused portions of other cows, chickens, goat and other assorted leftovers from the butchers- that how mad cow disease came about. The beef industry made cannibals of our docile cows. Now, as consumers demand cheaper and eat more red meat, we are going to pay a high price in the end. High output slaughter houses fatten their cows, in shorter periods of time to make more profit- there are so many together in such a small place that disease is rampant. They are given a cocktail of hormones and antibiotics, except for a couple kinds that are held back so humans don't become immune to it's effects. Dairy cattle are injected with a genetically engineered growth hormone to increase the production of milk by the cow. Widespread antibiotic use may have created antibiotic resistance of bacteria in humans. This has been linked to the increase in cancer and other diseases.

3. Everybody would be a humanitarian-pro conservatism-activist at heart. We would live a decadent lifestyle because we can. Money wouldn't be as important as bankers want. We would donate time and money to worthy causes.

4. Highschool, college and university graduates that take a year off to travel abroad would be to volunteer their time for a humanitarian effort.

5. Manufacturers of high 'turnover' products would be made responsible of recycling their products items like PC's, TV's, mobile phones, home and portable media players, and other
electronics. These companies produce a new and improved item every minute it seems, PCs don't last and are obsolete before you even unpack it. Old black and white TVs and big box sets are being replaced by flat screens. Mobiles are replaced (at least) on a yearly basis. Beta, to VHS and DVD to BlueRAY, the formats and technology advances at an exponential rate. You can expect that 9 out of 10 TVs make it to the dump and you can only expect the numbers to increase without action or change. These companies expect consumers to consume with much regard to the environmental impacts. Some areas it's illegal to dump your electronics, but the province will charge for the recycling of the TV, sometimes as much as 100$. So where it isn't illegal, and there is no system in place to sort waste from electronics, it all just goes to the dump.
Mattress distributors do it, they deliver and take away the old mattress for recycling. A small fee is added to the sale to offset the costs.
So have governments to pass laws making manufacturers responsible, and illegal to send e-waste to a 3rd world country. Pass the cost on to the consumer from the get go.
Everything else is, why not recycling?

6. Companies would stop bitching about how much it will cost to save the environment and just do it.

7. We would stop cutting down the trees to make paper, and retrofit paper plants use wheat straw — what's left of wheat after the grain harvest. Canada's forests are disappearing at an alarming rate and if we just look at newsprint, for example, 100 million trees are logged every year in Canada just to make newsprint.

8. We would stop buying newspapers and magazines, and subscribe to them online. Saving the forests of the world isn't something fashionable, it a necessity.

9. Herbicides, Pesticides, and fertilizers would be made illegal. World-wide.
There is a dead-zone the size of New Jersey in the Gulf during the peak of fertilizer run-off from the US's Corn Belt. A Dead-Zone is an area that has been oxygen-depleted- nothing lives there. The Corn Belt is MILLIONS of acres large, and growing due to current demands.

10. Companies will stop outsourcing to others with lax laws- just because our emissions and waste controls are too stringent. We shouldn't rely on others to dispose of our toxic waste because it's too expensive to do it here. Offshore recycling is not regulated, for example, monitor glass is dumped in irrigation canals and along the river where it leaches lead into the groundwater. The glass is laden with lead but the biggest hazard from this is the inhalation of the highly toxic phosphor dust coating inside.

"30 January 2007 (Seattle, WA.) – The Seattle based toxic trade watchdog, Basel Action Network (BAN), is concerned that Microsoft has done little to prevent or mitigate the massive hardware obsolescence that is likely to be caused by the release of its latest operating system known as Vista. The environmental organization predicts that the software launch will create a 'tsunami' of e-waste exported to developing countries already awash in e-waste exports, as consumers in rich countries dispose of their existing computers and buy new machines capable of running the new operating system.

[...]According to BAN, more than 50% of these computers globally, are exported to developing countries either whole or disassembled, where they are processed and disposed of in a manner that causes serious damage to workers and local environments. The result of this is that the gains of the electronics industry translate into serious environmental costs externalized to the poor. BAN earlier documented the cyber-age nightmares in such countries as China, India or Nigeria where women and children 'cook' lead-tin soldered circuit boards over small fires, soak chips in dangerous acid baths along river ways, smash lead and phosphor laden cathode ray tubes, and burn wires and plastic housings in open dumps.

Further, BAN notes that every time software makes hardware obsolete, the digital divide is actually perpetuated, because the divide is not defined by the gap between those with computers and those without, but by those with the latest innovations and those without. And when exported obsolete computers are handed down to developing country consumers for re-use, a toxic timebomb is created there due to the fact that the electronics industry has made no effort to ensure that infrastructure is in put in place to properly collect and manage their products at end-of-life.

"Most developing countries have no infrastructure whatsoever to collect and recycle computers, so when they die they are simply dumped and burned," Puckett said. "A truly responsible industry will take steps to ensure that innovation does not automatically equate to obsolescence, toxic waste and a growing population of hardware have-nots," he said.

Microsoft's Vista Could Harm Health in Developing Countries
Tsunami of Electronic Waste - BAN PRESS RELEASE

Support your Local Artist

It has been over four months since my last post... and it seems that everything I set out to do last year has skewed by my new perspective. Reality gave me a good ol' bitch slap, and I'm happy for it because when I complete my previous goals although not right now.

I starting draining my artists' core with grand plans of helping the artist community when I haven't even helped myself. I already contribute in other ways- more one on one coaching with creative minds than gathering them on a cold and lonely forum. I had vested so much energy into it, that my creative talents where also being depleted with it's design. Although I do think that we need more online artist communities, there are already plenty that offer loads of support for developing artists.
I'm near completion of the new website, and over the part couple months, concentrated my creativity on personal projects and have produced so many new pieces. I've been a member of Deviant Art - a massive online community of artists - that have provided me with the support that my forum would have offered.
Online shops and resources, jobs and contests are just a few of the things that they offer. Somehow, I think that my small community of artists' on the forum would better benefit from skills and experience in person, or one on one basis... they activity online was so low it seemed a waste of bandwidth. HAHA let alone the headaches of a n00b trying to use linux coding on a windows platform.
I'm going to stick to what I know for now. Someday I'll open a GREEN gallery or an artists' co-op- that'll be much more suitable to my skill set.