Murderer's Row
Media/Method: Assemblage and mixed media approaches with paper collage, acrylic, gouache, fabric, thread painting, and natural objects.
Dimensions: 26"x 44"
Price: POR
Statement: This series is a work in progress. The point of the approach is to articulate Murderer's Row abstractly in line, color, and word. Pairing visual elements with text causes the piece to emulate a paper section ripped from a book. With this series I am seeking to pair images with text that reflect and enhance each other not just in juxtaposition but also to build an effect that is inherent in building iconic imagery.
Dimensions: 26"x 44"
Price: POR
Statement: This series is a work in progress. The point of the approach is to articulate Murderer's Row abstractly in line, color, and word. Pairing visual elements with text causes the piece to emulate a paper section ripped from a book. With this series I am seeking to pair images with text that reflect and enhance each other not just in juxtaposition but also to build an effect that is inherent in building iconic imagery.
Series: Murderer’s Row
Month/Year: October 2015
Reference: Murderer’s Row, Inc.
Plate: #1
Title: Murderer’s Row Plate: #1
I am poor. I am also scrappy. Being scrappy makes for better meals and entertaining times alone. What poor also means is that I am not alone; at least not here in the neighborhood. On one hand, for solace, I am not lacking for star filled nights. On the other, needing attention, I am not lacking for companions between the meager silences. To those advertising direct contact, I am not lacking for someone who will use me. Maybe prostitution is paranoia of living this low beneath the poverty line. Still the perceptions I developed during my employment years is nothing like the ugliness of strife, desperation, and starvation that I see now. Therefore, I get to see the darker side of what it means to pay the rent, pay the car note, and pay the pimp. Hearing men and women at night, on the corner, giving more than street directions to McDonald’s has left me jaded. A shade’s rest over these eyes, some mornings, lingers so long into the heat of the day it is confusing. It is hearing the one o’clock shooting, listening to downplay by type A personalities, all scavengers breaking the body minutes afterward, followed by delayed cajoles and damnation of the neighbors. Despite it all, the evening plays leave by the light of day.
Neither do I dare speculate the crossing guard on your block nor why you left the eggs in the shopping cart at Wally World – as expensive as they are. I live at the corner of Murder’s Row and it cannot get plainer than this: harassment - from when I wake until I sleep. I have seven years under my belt and there appears no end in sight. Moving from a rooted home has never been an option. Oddly enough, the patience and endurance I pray for seems ever at their disposal. Is this a lion or a dragon I see before me? Dare I reveal? My strength is in question.
©N.A. Jones 2015 All Rights Reserved
Month/Year: October 2015
Reference: Murderer’s Row, Inc.
Plate: #1
Title: Murderer’s Row Plate: #1
I am poor. I am also scrappy. Being scrappy makes for better meals and entertaining times alone. What poor also means is that I am not alone; at least not here in the neighborhood. On one hand, for solace, I am not lacking for star filled nights. On the other, needing attention, I am not lacking for companions between the meager silences. To those advertising direct contact, I am not lacking for someone who will use me. Maybe prostitution is paranoia of living this low beneath the poverty line. Still the perceptions I developed during my employment years is nothing like the ugliness of strife, desperation, and starvation that I see now. Therefore, I get to see the darker side of what it means to pay the rent, pay the car note, and pay the pimp. Hearing men and women at night, on the corner, giving more than street directions to McDonald’s has left me jaded. A shade’s rest over these eyes, some mornings, lingers so long into the heat of the day it is confusing. It is hearing the one o’clock shooting, listening to downplay by type A personalities, all scavengers breaking the body minutes afterward, followed by delayed cajoles and damnation of the neighbors. Despite it all, the evening plays leave by the light of day.
Neither do I dare speculate the crossing guard on your block nor why you left the eggs in the shopping cart at Wally World – as expensive as they are. I live at the corner of Murder’s Row and it cannot get plainer than this: harassment - from when I wake until I sleep. I have seven years under my belt and there appears no end in sight. Moving from a rooted home has never been an option. Oddly enough, the patience and endurance I pray for seems ever at their disposal. Is this a lion or a dragon I see before me? Dare I reveal? My strength is in question.
©N.A. Jones 2015 All Rights Reserved
Series: Murderer’s Row
Month/Year: November 5, 2015
Reference: Murderer’s Row, Inc.
Plate: #2
Title: Healer, fix me. Healer, heal me.
My first eclipse was solar. We stood outside the building at IBM huddling and peering through sheets of paper that miss holes in their centers. This was the safe way to watch so as not to burn the retinas in our eyes. Me? I was used to looking into the sun. At some point, I stopped caring and today was no different. I still do not give a damn and I feel my life as a moth has begun. “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” always staged itself in the back of my mind when I befriended Southerners. Yet, the tendencies I once thought were backward would later save my life. Come twenty years later, I sat on my front porch for the big event. It was a lunar eclipse. I stayed the course for the full passing of the moon by pledging a discipline. I took the Hippocratic Oath, with no witnesses but the earth, nature, sky, moon, and sun.
I worked and studied quietly, telling no one for over two years. Still, the oath revealed itself in how I spoke, what I said, and in my penchant for culinary design. Maybe it was the food. Maybe desperation came out as an expectation to cure his ills. His overwhelming attraction had once kept me out and away from the house even years after he accosted me. He makes taunts out of good neighbor speeches to guilt people into keeping company with him. Fear has me wary he will knock at the front door demanding kindness after all the gossip and lies.
With prepared speeches and blocking, at least twice a week, he tries my complacence. It is not always to damage my reputation, but also to hurt me emotionally. Maybe he drives the point to elicit sympathy. The women in night’s window saw another profile of his face before they left hand in hand, limp arm over arm in his.
©N.A. Jones 2015 All Rights Reserved
Month/Year: November 5, 2015
Reference: Murderer’s Row, Inc.
Plate: #2
Title: Healer, fix me. Healer, heal me.
My first eclipse was solar. We stood outside the building at IBM huddling and peering through sheets of paper that miss holes in their centers. This was the safe way to watch so as not to burn the retinas in our eyes. Me? I was used to looking into the sun. At some point, I stopped caring and today was no different. I still do not give a damn and I feel my life as a moth has begun. “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” always staged itself in the back of my mind when I befriended Southerners. Yet, the tendencies I once thought were backward would later save my life. Come twenty years later, I sat on my front porch for the big event. It was a lunar eclipse. I stayed the course for the full passing of the moon by pledging a discipline. I took the Hippocratic Oath, with no witnesses but the earth, nature, sky, moon, and sun.
I worked and studied quietly, telling no one for over two years. Still, the oath revealed itself in how I spoke, what I said, and in my penchant for culinary design. Maybe it was the food. Maybe desperation came out as an expectation to cure his ills. His overwhelming attraction had once kept me out and away from the house even years after he accosted me. He makes taunts out of good neighbor speeches to guilt people into keeping company with him. Fear has me wary he will knock at the front door demanding kindness after all the gossip and lies.
With prepared speeches and blocking, at least twice a week, he tries my complacence. It is not always to damage my reputation, but also to hurt me emotionally. Maybe he drives the point to elicit sympathy. The women in night’s window saw another profile of his face before they left hand in hand, limp arm over arm in his.
©N.A. Jones 2015 All Rights Reserved