Edward Romano was born in Mount Kisco, New York and has lived in the Merrimack Valley area of Massachusetts for many years. His intent to illustrate the world as he sees it began early. As a child he attempted to copy the comic strips he discovered in Depression-era newspapers and was particularly attracted to well-defined and uncluttered images. He began to experiment with painting in the 1980s.

Romano's work is largely figurative in an urban folk style, some of which is influenced by memories of growing up in ethnic neighborhoods in Massachusetts and New Jersey. But the majority of his themes are more universal, endeavoring to depict people in ways that challenge the prevailing cultural standards and where joy is part of the ordinary human condition.

"I want to create images of people who are more concerned with life and living than with conforming to the expectations of others. I admire men and women who have the courage to stand aside from the crowd and express their individuality."

Featured Organization

English At Large

We don't take a summer vacation!

You received a recent mailing from English At Large with our final appeal for the fiscal year. What a year it has been -- more than 225 local adult learners served through our English literacy programs already!

Summer is here, but we are not slowing down! Unlike many programs, English At Large offers services all year. Right now, we are delivering summer conversation groups, one-to-one tutoring, and support to hundreds of local adults.

We need your help to make these year-round services possible.

If you have already given to the spring campaign, thank you!

If not, please consider making a gift --
it's easy! Just click the Donate Now button.

Help us to fill the summer ahead with the gift of English literacy for local adults -- the gift of hope and independence -- the gift of the American Dream.

Thank you!

Featured Artist

Donnie Pope

At an early age, I was inspired by the light, movement and fluidity that masters such as Michelangelo and Rubens displayed in their work. Later, I was influenced by the "slice of life" style of Norman Rockwell. I choose "slice of life" subjects to capture the magic of the moment. I choose a lot of jazz and music themes because of the freedom they allow me to have. I can go wherever the music takes me. Anything “Miles Davis” is a great creative soundtrack for me. What I really love about the creative process is the anticipation of not knowing where I’m going to end up once I start a painting.

As a young boy in my native town of Franklin, Virginia, I would daydream about sharing my art with the world. My career in art officially began in Mrs. Fenner's second grade class. Along with classmate and best friend, Ralph Vincent, we were tasked with drawing the New York City skyline. Running through numerous boxes of crayons in the process, we proceeded to draw and color every brick and window. It was an arduous task, to say the least. It took everything I had to offer creatively, but I absolutely loved it! The New York City skyline project was the talk of grade school. While I loved the attention, I realized at a young age that I would always have to outdo my previous work if I wanted to stay in the profession. Ralph went on to pursue a short career cleaning erasers. I continued drawing and painting every chance I got. I was hooked!

Hampton University was my next stop. Beginning my studies as a raw, freshman, art major, I was taught by some of the most talented and knowledgeable professors and artists of the day: Lorraine Bolton (Graphic Design), Janice Orr (Drawing) and Sister Benedict Donahue (Art History), to name a few. These professors followed me through my college studies.

Since leaving Hampton, I've been a graphic designer for various corporations in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. At present, I am a senior graphic designer with a high tech firm in Northern Virginia. In a nutshell, I love to create art, both at work and at my leisure. I hope you enjoy what you see!

Featured Artist/Psychotherapist

David J. Bookbinder

I was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1951. I started photographing in high school where, as yearbook editor, I took most of the candid and "art" pictures. After college, I moved to New York City. There, for several years, I did black-and-white street photography, took pictures of musicians for a book I wrote on American folk music, shot an occasional record album cover, and worked part-time as a photojournalist. When I left New York, I left my darkroom -- and photography -- behind.

In 2001, after a 20-year hiatus, I bought a digital camera and started shooting again. The shift from straight black and white, wet chemistry photography to shooting in color and manipulating images on a computer was literally an eye-opener. Rather than the people and buildings I had shot in my black-and-white days, I found myself shooting patterns of color and light. I learned to manipulate the images, hoping at first merely to improve them, but soon realizing that once an image file was on my hard drive, I could do anything I wanted with it.

Although I still take pictures of street life, nature, and people, my current preoccupation is with transforming photographs of flowers, stone, metal, wood, and the sky into mandala-like images. My early influences included Walker Evans and Diane Arbus. The present work is inspired by the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, the nature photographs of Andreas Feininger, and the flower images of Harold Feinstein, with whom I briefly studied.

My personal motivation in creating these images was to heal from a decade of physical and emotional trauma, the consequence of a near-fatal event in Albany, New York, in 1993. I tend to work on several mandalas at once. On each piece, I spend anywhere from a few hours to a sequence of several-hour sessions spread out over a couple of months. The experience is reminiscent of meditation.

My choice of the hexagram (the Star of David, "beloved" in Hebrew) as the organizing shape for most of these mandalas was subconscious, but I believe this choice was no accident. In many traditions, the Star of David, composed of two overlapping triangles, represents the reconciliation of opposites -- male/female, fire/water, and so on. Their combination symbolizes unity and harmony. Listening to what the mandalas were telling me led me out of a dark place and, indirectly, to my decision to become a psychotherapist.

Carl Jung, one of the fathers of modern psychology, believed mandalas are a pathway to the essential Self and used them in his own personal transformation. In a small way, as both psychotherapist and mandala artist, I carry on Jung's tradition. I live north of Boston, where I do psychotherapy primarily with artists and people with addictive behaviors. I display several of the flower mandalas in my treatment rooms, and from time to time they become part of discussions with clients. The combination of natural elements and digital manipulation seems both to stimulate and to relax them.

The selection on my website www.phototransformations.com/Flowers is part of a book in progress. My intent is to pair 52 images with inspirational quotations such that each image and quote pair resonates with a fundamental aspect of human experience. I invite participation from anyone who cares to contact me through my blog flowermandalas.blogspot.com.

I hope publication of these images will further the process of harnessing the power of the mandala to heal.

Featured Artist/Astrologer

Chris Flisher

I have been creating mandalas and spiritually-realized drawings for years. The inspiration for the artwork sprang initially from my love of astrology. Astrology uses circles and cycles to represent the changing universe. As the planets drift through the cosmos, as the seasons change, as the days come and go, the universe evolves and expands in a timeless swirl of circular motion: as above, so below. The very essence of the circle is at the core of our DNA, the patterns of nature, time, and space.

The drawings evolve from the subconscious and are created in a stream of consciousness involving concentration and meditation. All designs, patterns, and symbols are original and one of a kind. The swirl of color, textures, and spiritual symbolism are all part of the process. Although these are not typical mandalas, they evolve from the same spiritual center and are offered to the universe for the collective good of all.

Featured Artist/Muralist

Carlos Solis

My work reflects the distinctness of my artistic perception from those experiences, which provides with vivid colors and physical details those qualities in order to make something visually pleasing, grotesque or different to look at. Furthermore, I also try to create awareness and express an opinion about our delicate habitat, lack of knowledge about cultural and racial diversity, South America and spiritual concepts.

In my infinite world of my imagination, I try to convey and stimulate the mythical and spiritual elements of visual expression. My passion in painting started with the magnificence of elements of nature, fauna and flora, and its natural beauty that involves its selective conditions, for example: the majestic animals of the Amazon or Indians from Venezuela called Guajiros. However, I always try to expand my work to others areas of reality and with a spiritual meaning; I occasionally have the tendency to go from one extreme to another in order to explore and show my range of styles and techniques by creating the most beautiful and delicate components of life with the most complex and strange art.

Fortunately for me, I have the pleasure and the opportunity to experience the richness of many cultures in South and North America which allow me to expand my imagination even more. My experience also helps me to understand the differences and similarities of both worlds.

Carlos loved art since early age. He showed signs of an active imagination and growing creative abilities. With his love for animals and cartoon characters, Carlos always wanted to be a cartoonist and a wild life artista, but his vision expanded through the years to bring cultural perspective and an effective vision of more complex and ultra-dimensional presences to his paintings.

Carlos Solis graduated with an Associates Degree in Graphic Design. He started painting artistically in the mid-nineties as a freelancer specializing in nature, fantasy, spiritual and conceptual art. He works in a variety of illustrative media; such us, digital, oil, acrylics, gauche, mixed media and pencil. He also enjoys producing works of decorative art such as murals.

Featured Artist/Inventor

Natasha Clark

Let me briefly tell you the story of how Paula Wowee™ came to be. During my childhood my brother, sister and I used to do these comedic skits. We would play out these scenes by using dolls that we had collected. One of the adventures we played over and over again was this character called, “Paula Wowee”. In my brother's imagination, she was a white rabbit with two black eyes, a pink nose and the power to fly! Also, foster bunnies called the “Wowees” adopted Paula.

We had loads of fun creating skits and acting them out; at the age of 8 this inspired me to write a seven book series that is currently unpublished. By the age of 12 we never played “Paula Wowee” again. She was gone from our minds and imagination.

I went on to go school at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh and graduated with an A.S. degree in Arts & Animation. I was showing off my portfolio three years ago and received rave reviews, but colleagues and friends kept going back to the Paula Wowee character. Months later I decided to take the advice of a good friend and pursued developing the character seriously. She's unique, likeable, and has a cuteness factor. Then there's the flying!

The Paula Wowee™ venture started with an online store selling tee shirts, buttons, and other “Wowee” items. Then I progressed on to my current projects: a plush toy line and three-dimensional animated cartoon, which you can see on my website www.clarkimages.com. You will also find the official Paula Wowee™ store there and some of my art portfolio. I am interested in selling or licensing the rights to Paula Wowee™ to a larger company that can share my magical childhood dream with children around the world.

Featured Art

"In recognition of the connectedness of man and nature, created
with deep appreciation for the many artists, craftsmen, and peoples whose
art has been recycled to make this collage."

The artist has certified that the work titled "Green Man" is now in the public domain.

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GreenSpeech.Org
Ideas for the 21st Century

Featured Material

Featured Artist

Ed Romano

Featured Organization

English At Large

We don't take a summer vacation!

Featured Artist

Donnie Pope

Featured Artist/Psychotherapist

David J. Bookbinder

Featured Artist/Astrologer

Chris Flisher

Featured Artist/Muralist

Carlos Solis

Featured Artist/Inventor

Natasha Clark

Featured Art

Copyright Notice

GreenSpeech.Org Ideas for the 21st Century

Featured Material

Featured Artist

Ed Romano

Featured Organization

English At Large

We don't take a summer vacation!

Featured Artist

Donnie Pope

Featured Artist/Psychotherapist

David J. Bookbinder

Featured Artist/Astrologer

Chris Flisher

Featured Artist/Muralist

Carlos Solis

Featured Artist/Inventor

Natasha Clark

Featured Art

Copyright Notice

GreenSpeech.Org
Ideas for the 21st Century