Although McGee mentions many artists in her attempt to show that portraiture is “back,” she discusses only a few of them in detail, most of whom are painters and the rest are sculptors. Though she writes in the guise of an objective journalist, her selection of these types of artists is no mistake and reveals a romanticized notion of portraiture as an intimate process that only traditional media can truly capture. She notes, “Many artists believe that no mechanical means of reproduction should come between artist and subject in their intense connectedness.” Indeed, she is careful to explain that Chuck Close, best known for his photo-realistic paintings, has moved away from such stolid formalism to a more personalized, intimate approach to portraiture.

Holmes, on the other hand, cannot seem to get away from “mechanical means of reproduction.” Of the eleven bodies of work she covers, six of them work directly with photography or film, hardly the kind of mechanism-free nothing-between-you-and-me art-of-intimacy McGee envisioned. Of the remaining five, two actually work with photography as an integral part of their work—Nicolai’s “performance” piece really just being an elaborate staging for taking photographs and Herring’s sculptures comprised of collaged fragments of photographs—and one, Brian Alfred, does work inescapably entwined with technology as a device, since he bases his paintings off of pictures taken from the internet. Compared with McGee’s intimate “menage a trois…among artist, subject and viewer,” these mechanically-induced portraits are sure to seem more impersonal, detached, less imbued with the artist’s presence, and therefore more conceptual in nature.

While Chuck Close is the perfect example of how a painting can look like a photograph (and certainly the opposite can be true), different media, like different art forms, experience their own trajectories in art history. While some themes might move between music, visual arts, and writing simultaneously, they are also distinct art forms that evolve at their own pace. Similarly, photography, sculpture, painting, performance art, and movie-making are all very different approaches to the visual arts. This begs the question: what conclusions might have McGee drawn if she had looked at photography or performance art for her article? Similarly, what might have Holmes seen if she had included more than just one painter in hers? By the way, that painter, Brian Alfred, does small paintings of people he admires, including friends and family, in an attempt to portray his own identity. He exemplifies the kind of art McGee described in her article over ten years earlier and shows that, at least in the realm of portraiture painting, perhaps there has been no change at all.

Even within the media McGee and Holmes selectively review, a scan of 500 Self-Portraits suggests they are just cherry-picking examples to make their own points. Adrian Piper’s 1981 “Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features” certainly seems to be striving for individuality in the context of race and ethnicity at least as much as McGee’s example—nearly 15 years later—of Dennis Kardon’s “Jewish noses” sculpture series. Chuck Close’s 1991 self-portrait, comprised of small amoeba-like shapes, seems far more a formal exercise and much less personal than his photo-realistic “Big Self Portrait” from 1967-8, suggesting the trend McGee described with him might actually have been happening in reverse, if at all. Cindy Sherman’s self-portrait is a photograph that “quotes” Ingres much in the same way that Holmes describes contemporary portraiture as doing nearly twenty years later. Similarly, Shirin Neshat’s “Seeking Martyrdom” from 1995 is as every bit as conceptual and “in your face” as Holmes’s repertoire of examples from a decade later.

From these examples, it seems impossible to conclude anything from a comparison of McGee and Holmes’s articles other than the fact that they, like the artists they write about, are creating their own stories from personal observations and subjective experience. If asked directly, they would likely define portraiture differently, know of vastly different types of artists, and therefore see completely different trends in the exact same period of time. Portraiture in 2007 may well have been very different from portraiture in 1995, but we would not know it from these two articles.

The overall mood of Dean’s piece is intensely dramatic, and it instantly involves one as both a viewer of art and the reader of an unfolding story. The blackboard as a base layer literally establishes the foundation of a dark, ominous mood, that plays through the entire piece. The rendering of the ship(s) at sea is done so convincingly in chalk that the viewer is teleported to the scene, immediately involved in the danger taking place. The presentation of the piece as a diptych involves the viewer even more, creating a sequential story left for the viewer to complete.

The overall composition of the piece is powerful in both parts of the diptych, with dramatic contrasts of light and dark, chaotically varied use of line evocative of the storm the drawing depicts, and a strong horizontal orientation that accentuates the left-to-right reading of the two panels as a story. As the viewer moves closer, the technique and the medium become more apparent and are, in fact, quite surprising. Reading from a distance almost like a painting, the drawing itself is actually chalk on blackboard. In addition, the sweeping movement of the composition as a whole seems contradicted by the realization that each panel is actually a set of four smaller frames, meticulously delineated from one another.

Indeed, this closer investigation of the piece almost makes the initial intensity and drama of it recede as the viewer begins to question the essence of what exactly s/he is looking at? Perhaps this is not a story at all; perhaps we are not to have been “transported” to another place and time.

Perhaps, as Vitamin D suggests, the piece is about memory. Memory, like each panel of the diptych, is pieced together as we live our lives. In many cases, these pieces are disparate and not logically associated, like seeing your spouse in a dream about your childhood. However, particularly dramatic memories can be unforgettable, and traumatic ones tend to be relived with great clarity. Oddly, the small notes written into the piece create a technical sensibility, as if we are looking at the blueprint of a memory methodically reconstructed in all its intensity.

Finally, there exists the great irony of the piece, that it is drawn upon a blackboard that, while essential to the piece’s dramatic mood, is a surface meant to be erased. It leaves the thoughtful viewer with the notion that, after all this methodical reconstruction, the piece will simply disappear, as if it never was. What then, was the true purpose of it in the first place?

• Best Bets Overall – Consultant/Lawyer: Two careers stand out as not only highly recommended for INTJ/Ps but also rather lucrative. Although a few other careers are recommended ahead of them for INTJs and INTPs, Lawyers ($58 or $68/hour) are still near the top for both and make substantially more than other career options.[2] Management Consultant ($35/hour or $61/hour) is not only one of the best paid careers but also even more highly recommended for both INTJs and INTPs than Lawyer. Do the long hours for consultants taper off with experience as PayScale’s graphs imply, or are Managers and Partners also caught up in the 65 to 75 hour work weeks? If it’s the latter, consulting might be downgraded, but US News picks it as one of the Best Careers for 2009 while calling Lawyer an overrated career so I kept them both on equal footing.[7]
• Highest-Paying Career / Career in Health – Doctor: If the absolute most important thing to you is salary or you know you want to be in a health-related field, then being a Doctor ($67 or $70+/hour) might be the way to go. They are less recommended for INTJ/Ps than Consultants, Lawyers, and Engineers but are still on many lists. Despite making more than these other options, Doctors must invest in far more school and training, so the eventual higher income might not make up for the income lost by not working. Although US News counts Physician as an Overrated Career, it also recommends Veterinarians and Optometrists as Best Careers for 2009.
• Best Careers without an Advanced Degree or Killer Hours – Engineers / System Analysts: Although an advanced degree will help, Engineers* ($22/hour or $38/hour) [2] and System Analysts ($22/hour or $37/hour) can get started making decent money right out of college and are both recommended in US News’ Best Careers 2009. The same can be said of Consultants (above), but they must also work incredibly long hours. In addition, those who stick with it might become Engineering Managers or Computer System Managers, the sixth-highest and eighth-highest paid careers in the United States, respectively, according to BizJournal. Economists/Auditors ($21/hour or $28-$37/hour) and Scientists were also options here but are not as highly recommended for INTJ/Ps or included in Best Careers 2009.
• Career with Minimum Hours / Career in Education – Professor: If you want to maximize your free time but still make a solid living, then you should consider being a Professor ($33/hour or $46/hour), which has the lowest number of required hours of any career recommended for INTJ/Ps. US News notes Professor as an Overrated Career, and the average 7 years in a PhD program without making any substantial income reduces actual lifetime earnings relative to other careers, but there is no denying that the eventual schedule is the most flexible. [2, 3] Teacher ($22/hour) is also recommended for INTPs and is on US News’ list of “Overrated Careers.”[4]
• Non-Profit/Public Sector Career: The career “Manager” is rather vague, but it is a top recommendation for INTJs and could be the ticket for those interested in public service. While US News notably warns against Non-profit Manager, it recommends Government Manager. Although it likely requires the investment of an advanced degree, it returns salary ($28/hour) and hours on par with Engineers and System Analysts, recommended above.
• Building/Design Career: The best Architects and Urban Planners could have done in my previous posts on INTJs and INTPs was the bottom tier of recommendations, because Team Technology did not really include them in their survey. Recommended for INTJ/Ps on most other sites, these careers and others like them could be excellent fits for this personality type. Kind of a compromise between Architects and Urban Planners, Landscape Architects make about the same amount ($24/hour), but can get started without an advanced degree. In addition, they have a higher level of job satisfaction and a better market outlook than Urban Planners, while regular Architects are panned as an overrated career. Unfortunately, the downswing in the economy has been particularly detrimental to these professions.
• Creative Careers: Although selecting a creative career is likely based more on the inclinations of talent than anything else, Writer stands out because it does make a little more ($23/hour or $27/hour)[5] than other options like Graphic Designers ($16/hour or $23/hour) or traditional artists (fine artists, musicians, actors, etc.). In addition, one strain of Writer, the Ghostwriter, is recommended as a Best Career 2009 by US News.
• Random Extra Career: For INTPs who want to directly help people through interacting with them, Occupational Therapist ($32/hour) could be an excellent choice. It is recommended for INTPs and is included in US News’ Best Careers 2009, but keep in mind that is not as highly recommended for INTPs as the other options above, and US News’ Report Card shows they probably barely made it onto their list.

CareerCast’s Jobs Rated ranking of 200 jobs takes even more factors into account, including stress, physical demands, and the environment. Not surprisingly, these additional elements make options for “Best Careers without Killer Hours” (System Analysts at #6) and “Career with Minimum Hours” (various research-oriented/professor-like careers) comprise more than half of the top 20.[6] All the other careers listed above comprise the middle 40% of the ranking, with Technical Writer (#60) and Occupational Therapist (#61) at the top of that group and Teacher (#127) toward the bottom. The only career for INTJ/Ps outside the top 70% is an Actor, coming in at #170.

Notes

1. PayScale’s salaries, which are the median of those reported, will generally be lower than BizJournal’s, which are skewed higher due to highly compensated employees at the top of the spectrum in their respective careers.
2. Lawyers, Professors, and Engineers who work for hospitals make about 20% more than their peers in other sectors.
3. PhD’s in Business Administration might be a different story, with starting salaries averaging $86,000 (in 2001), substantial growth potential and non-academic opportunities, and a shortage of business professors.
4. If you want to be in education, a good alternative might be Curriculum Designer.
5. Some writers can actually a little more. Technical writers average $27/hour, and grant writers, after paying their dues for 10 years, end up averaging $29/hour.
6. Biologist (“Scientist” above) #4, Software Engineer (“Engineer” above) #5, Systems Analyst #6, Economist #11, Physicist #13, Computer Programmer #18, and Astronomer (“Scientist” above) #20 are all in the top 10% along with a variety of research-oriented/professor-like careers–Mathemetician #1, Historian #7, Sociologist #8, Philosopher #9.
7. Before you run out to apply for business school, Vault’s articles on Consulting are highly worthwhile: Reality Check – Changing Careers to Consulting, What It Takes to Be a Consultant, and Consulting Caveats.

1. Infrastructure Development: Infrastructure like roads, power lines, and sewage enhances the usability of land for other purposes and can be seen as public goods inexorably tied to the land upon which it is developed. Urban planners in developing countries should focus on slum upgrading and urban services in already-developed urban areas and can create infrastructure in less urbanized areas to redirect population growth away from over-taxed urban centers. (The development of water supply and drainage systems are of particular importance to the improvement of housing in Uganda.) Infrastructure like public bike parking lots, bike racks on public transit, and bike-only streets can remove obstacles to using this superior mode of transportation. Roads and public transit lines can connect low-income communities in urban cores to jobs in growing suburbs, as recommended for the Philadelphia area.
2. Spatial Design as a Public Good: Although what constitutes good urban design is debateable and popular approaches to urban design frequently become accessible only to the elite, the spatial design of an urban area still might be construed as one way of creating a public good in and of itself or encouraging the creation of other activities in the public interest. For example, campus-like urban designs can encourage biking.  The creation of three “town centers” in West Philadelphia would also arguably enhance the housing stock.
3. Placement of Public Spaces: Planners and policy makers frequently have the responsibility to make decisions about where to place public goods like parks, transit hubs, and social institutions.  Sometimes, the location should the decision for us, such as the immutable locales of natural beauty and geological uniqueness that should be preserved by government at all levels.  In other cases, placement is used to reinvigorate a particular neighborhood, such the recommendation to place a school in the northern section of Gray’s Ferry in South Philadelphia.  The distance between multiple public spaces is also important; increasing the distance between public transit in walkable cities can encourage biking, a superior mode of transportation.

The interaction and overlapping of these three areas of planning and design necessitate urban plans, as recommended for South Philadelphia in this community plan for Gray’s Ferry, and each in turn encourages the development of additional activities and resources for the public good.  Of course, financial incentives can also be used in a similar manner to encourage the private sector to create public goods like plazas and parks abutting office buildings, affordable housing incorporated into new housing developments (specific recommendation for Gray’s Ferry neighborhood), or office showers to encourage bike commuting.

_____________

Community activist Lois Gibbs speaks for many people in arguing that there is no such thing as “successful” hazardous waste siting, since hazardous waste harms people and therefore should not exist. Community organizations have been so successful in blockading facility development that not only have none have been built in the last twenty years in the United States but also existing facilities have had to “eliminate some of the most egregious disposal practices” through improved safety standards [Rabe, 15].  Barry Rabe, in Beyond NIMBY: Hazardous Waste Siting in Canada and the United States, sees this as a problem and writes that private corporations and the public should desire new hazardous waste facilities for a variety of reasons, none of which stand up to criticism.

1. Improved Disposal Technology: The first supposed problem with the failure to site facilities is that new facilities would provide an opportunity to utilize improved disposal technology [Rabe, 16]. However, he qualifies his argument by adding that ‘”‘blame for the inability to utilize promising new technologies cannot be placed solely with Nimby resistance to siting. The most prominent firms in waste management … have hardly been aggressive and effective advocates for the introduction of new technologies with industries, governments, or the the general public’”‘ [Rabe, 16]. In addition, there is nothing stopping corporations from improving old facilities with new technology.
2. On-Site Disposal: The second supposed problem with the lack of hazardous waste facilities is that hazardous waste is increasingly disposed of on-site, which Rabe sees as problematic because of the lack of on-site waste management standards [Rabe, 17], but this problem could more readily addressed by simply extending government regulations to on-site waste management. Concerns about the failure of government regulation apply equally Rabe’s plan.
3. Long-Distance Transport: Rabe’s third concern about the failure to site hazardous waste facilities is the danger of long-distance transport between the currently sparsely located facilities. Rabe’s voluntary approach, however, does not deal with this concern.  First, Rabe’s approach would eliminate on-site waste disposal, forcing waste that travels nowhere in the status quo to travel to new facilities. This increase in transportation, in addition to the potential increase in waste, certainly will not counteract current problems with long-distance transport.  Second, the proliferation of hazardous waste facilities that his approach would incur would decrease at best only the distance hazardous waste must travel, not the amount of waste being transported.  By supplying more hazardous waste facilities, the incentive for corporations to decrease the production of hazardous waste would decline. This logic is explained by Gibbs:

“In the boardrooms at some point, there’s going to be this discussion ‘Hey, ten years ago, our disposal costs were X and now they are multiplying and so is our liability and so is the public-relations damage.’ That’s when real change will come. All they understand is profit and loss. When the cost is high enough, corporations will decide to recycle wastes and reclaim materials, to substitute nontoxics in their products, to change their processes of production.” [Gibbs, quoted in Greider, 169-170].

The current state of gridlock in the hazardous waste siting process represents the positive outcome of a vigorous and active public that has a significant impact on the policy making of the government. Pursuit of Rabe’s proposed alternative would address a hazardous waste crisis that is non-existent, diminish real public involvement, and deplete safety standards by displacing the NIMBY organizations that pushed for them with governmental agencies that have an already poor track record of enforcing waste regulation.

• Regional Policy Recommendations – Waste Management in Delaware County: I actually wrote this before attending Penn as an outgrowth of my work for environmental justice in Chester.  Broader legal and regulatory recommendations are in this post.
• Metropolitan Market Competitiveness Study – Philadelphia: After discussing trends in population, human capital, employment in Philadelphia and noting the regional context, this paper recommends a carrying capacity study, improvements in education, connecting city workers to suburban jobs, developing the leisure sector, strengthening health care and social services, and a “locational identification” campaign.  (2003)
• Community Development Plan – Gray’s Ferry: Grays Ferry is a neighborhood with rich architectural, economic, and cultural diversity.  After reviewing the community’s history, land use, population, housing, real estate, transportation, employment, social capital, and major landmarks and recent events, this paper recommends investment in a social institution like a school in the northern section of the neighborhood, a comprehensive plan for South Philadelphia, and diversified community-oriented housing stock.  (December 15, 2003)
  
• University Area Housing Strategy – University of Pennsylvania (13MB pdf): This 141-page publication recommends the creation of three “town centers” in West Philadelphia from 50th St. east through Penn’s campus with the ultimate effect of improving the area’s housing stock for Penn, its affiliates, and the surrounding neighborhood. (May 2004)
• Real Estate Design – The Springfield Mall (pdf): This paper discusses the state of Springfield Mall’s current layout and design, focusing on parking and exterior access, common spaces, and the promenade. It recommends adding a separate facility like a restaurant or bank outside the mall, adding external frontage, and setting up a gas station on the southern edge of the parking lot. (February 2, 2005)
• Urban Design Competition – Riverfront Casino (2MB pdf): This large display, submitted for Penn’s urban design competition in early 2005, shows an urban design for how to develop casinos on Philadelphia’s waterfront. (2005)

"Lone Tree II" is one of Mr. Maridakis's recent works and is on display at 95 Third St. in San Francisco.

In the first of the Dead Dog Cafe’s Emerging Artist series, I will be discussing the background, inspirations, and motivations of the thoughtful surrealist painter Tony Maridakis of San Francisco.

Mr. Maridakis would have you think he has only recently discovered his talent for painting, but this guy has been a prodigy from the start.  Most people can lay claim to having some lost talent for drawing, painting, singing, or magical instrument playing from yesteryear, but few actually had their art exhibited publicly, much less in as well-trafficked a locale as the San Francisco International Airport.  Indeed, Mr. Maridakis’s groundbreaking painting using found objects (sponges) was so displayed when he was a kid.  Not only was the medium cutting edge, but the topic was sharp and contemporary: a quizzical exploration of the Miss America pageant.

Such talent is hard to come by, and even harder to contain, so what is it that took Mr. Maridakis decades to return to such an apparent love for art?  Like many of us, the soul-crushing mores of society distracted him from the truth and dragged him down a path beckoning money, security, and approval.  Despite the clear signage–promotions, success, raises–along this path, Mr. Maridakis began to feel increasingly lost and muddled.  His mind tormented with too much left-brain-driven thought about work, he sought refuge in the right side of his brain, which had somehow had the presence all along to surround Mr. Maridakis with a fine collection of artwork and artist friends.  From this foundation, he took his first steps just over ten years ago to reclaim his calling as an artist by taking a painting class.

Like any artist ascending the shambles of a crumbling past unsupported by the glories of art, Mr. Maridakis has been cautiously methodical, lest he slip and fall into the abyss of his formerly droll life.  Though his intent all along was to paint abstractly in oil, he began with watercolor, seeing a progression from watercolor to acrylic to oil; and with paintings true to life, with another progression in mind from realistic to surreal to abstract painting.  Initially just exploring the medium, Mr. Maridakis eventually lay the foundation for his current painting through this important phase of his work, as I described in a previous post.

Despite finding through watercolor the template for his current work by 2001, Mr. Maridakis did not fully release himself to explore his art until four years later.  In 2005, he found himself working at the Art Institute, where he had made sacrifices to contribute to the important work of and surround himself with artists.  At this time, he began to take classes there and traveled to locations that inspired his work, most recently spending about a year in Argentina.  He is continuing his art education right now through UC Berkeley’s post-baccalaureate program.

Mr. Maridakis counts as influences Van Gogh, El Greco, Volkov, Earhart Richter, Sonja Echart, Liberti, the latter two of which are Argentinian inspirations doing abstract landscapes and surrealism, respectively.  His work can be viewed online.

• Early Watercolor: These initial efforts are exemplified in Plastic Gold Fish (1997), Tapestry (1996), and Vineyard (1996). Here we see Mr. Maridakis experimenting with the basic elements of watercolor as a medium in three distinctly different paintings. Plastic Gold Fish strives to be true to reality, capturing the visual character of a fish as one might see it in life, with correct proportions, a sense of shape, coloration, and depth. In contrast, Vineyard is a more playful articulation, paying more heed to vibrant color and active gesture than holding to a crisp, realistic form. Although this latter work becomes more abstract, that abstraction comes in through the act of simplified painting rather than in the selection of the image or the actual content of the painting. An entirely different type of abstraction is apparent in Tapestry, a painting based on extremely simplified forms that seek not depict a unified landscape scene but rather strive to carve out their own space in this broad array of color and shape. Flat in its depth, Tapestry brings the viewer’s attention to the relationships between the shapes and colors. It builds a vaguely realistic object from the variety of semi-realistic forms and abstractions, but the point is clearly not to depict a work of woven art in painted form. Here, Mr. Maridakis has taken his watercoloring from realism to abstraction within the course of his first year of handling this medium.
• Late Watercolor: Mr. Maridakis’s work progresses over the next few years, taking similar scenes but pushing them in the opposite direction of how he had painted them before and laying the foundation for his current paintings in acrylic and oil, as can be seen in Baccus (2001), Vineyard II (2001), and Landscape I & II (2001). As if to demonstrate his aptitude for all varieties of style, Mr. Maridakis takes the gestural and colorful Vineyard I scene and renders it more delicately with muted colors. The forms themselves are placed and shaped similarly; the hill for example remains a simplified form comprised of three straight lines for the horizon and serving more as a palette upon which the Mr. Marikdakis paints the patterns of the earth rather than an indicator of depth or shape. However, the painting seems entirely different in its mood on account of the changes in color and gesture. Baccus can perhaps be associated with Plastic Gold Fish as straight-forward still life renderings, but again Mr. Maridakis takes the style in the opposite direction. Where Plastic Gold Fish showed subtle depth and form, Baccus focuses boldly on simplified, flat, pattern-like shapes of the glass and grapes. As with the earlier Vineyard I, the gesture in the painting is clear, and, though the palette is limited only to black and white, the use of these colors is bolder. Finally, though the association might not be apparent at first, the Landscape I & II pieces can be seen as a progression of Tapestry. Although the scene is clearly based on life and the viewer can sense the implied depth, the painting is not about creating a sense of space but rather showing vibrant and colorful shapes, each bearing its own weight in the composition and coming to the fore in its own right, just as in Tapestry. This relationship is made even more apparent through observation of the lower portion of the painting where a patterned, tapestry-like segment has been directly pasted over the original and least vibrant section of the original painting.
• Relationship to Current Painting: Although Mr. Maridakis discusses only two groups of paintings in his Artist Statement, it is generally accepted by the art world that his work today falls into three categories, each of which is an outgrowth of the distincts areas of exploration during his watercolor phase. The “Lone Tree” series is clearly a continuation of “Vineyard I” and “Vineyard II,” taking the image of trees on a hill, paring it down to one simple tree, and imbuing the painting with symbolic meaning through the surreal coloration and nearly archetypal imagery. His “Estudio” series–including “Estudio en Azul,” “Estudio en Amarillo,” and “Estudio en Divinidad“–is an extension of “Bacchus,” which might have been called “Estudio en Negro y Blanco.” In these, Mr. Maridakis again makes color, contrast, and fluid brushstrokes the focal points of his canvas, but this time the art is seemingly devoid of any basis in reality.* Finally, Mr. Maridakis’s “Landscape I & II” serve as ample prelude to his noteworthy “Océanos Imaginadas” series, all of which show a landscape with limited foreground and divided near the middle of the painting by a horizon. Although the elements of tapestry and patterning are less apparent, they are still present in these surreal paintings in a number of ways, including the repetition of the oblong oval shape, the patterning effect of the stones on the ground, the disconnection between the light between the sky and the earth, the separation of the paintings into smaller scenes, and finally the overall organization of these paintings as a tryptich.
• Culmination of Watercolor Painting: I would be remiss in discussing Mr. Maridakis’s watercolors without calling attention to Colonia I, his singular masterpiece of this era in his painting. In this painting, we see all of the themes and styles of his prior watercolor coming into balance. Depicting a colorful building running along an inviting avenue, Colonia strikes an interesting balance between still life and landscape. Certainly, the outdoor scene with trees, buildings, and marked depth perspective can be considered a landscape, but the building itself consumes so much of the painting that other traditional elements of landscape painting, such as the sky and the foreground, are given very little space. Indeed, the painting might also be considered a still life of a building, despite the lack of fruit and tablecloths in the scene. The painting also strikes a balance between the realistic and the abstract. The viewer does not question the scene’s “realism” overall, as the composition itself depicts this street scene quite realistically: the building recedes to the horizon correctly; the trees seem to arrange themselves in the right places around the facade; and the lighting seems consistent across the painting, creating a sense of depth that makes the painting sit well from a distance. However, each element taken alone becomes abstracted and has more in common with Baccus than Plastic Gold Fish. The trees are spherical clouds of painterly dabs within which in branches are nearly if not entirely lost. The building itself is like a colorful painter’s palette cut into the shape of a building and placed on the page, such is the variety of brushwork and playfulness of the stroke. Finally, the cobblestone street defies the rules of perspective, falling away before the viewer as it is painted as a flat array of rectangular blocks of muted color. It is in this latter segment that the tapestratic approach of both Tapestry and Landscape I & II is most apparent, but the painting overall also possesses the same overall sensibility, placing simplified but individually vibrant shapes next to each other.

Patterning, shape relationships, vibrant color–all of these components that are to become signatures of Mr. Maridakis’s work are apparent in balanced form in Colonia I. It is no surprise that he came back to this painting in Colonia II, but it is a surprise that the original is not up for sale on his online store. This painting marks not only a culmination in his early watercolor paintings but also a turning point as he subsequently begins to explore acrylic and oil painting as noted above.

* For those who question the relationship between such “abstract” art and “Bacchus,” clearly derived from life, Mr. Maridakis’s “Comet” serves as an adequate middle ground, showing his transition between realism and abstraction in this strain of his work.

Waste facilities and pollution are economic externalities associated with land use that disproportionately effect low-income and especially minority communities in the United States.  I first became interested in combating environmental injustice in college, when I worked with other students to aid the community organization Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL).  The issue unwittingly arose again many years later when I was studying urban planning at Penn where I rued the folding of the movement against environmental racism into the movement for environmental justice.  Despite the challenges of directly addressing environmental racism under the banner of environmental justice, I did come to several recommendations for legal and regulatory remedies for environmental racism and injustice.  These suggestions are excerpted below from my original paper on the topic in 2003 and followed by some more recent thoughts on the matter.

• I. Nuisance Law - A Return to the Origins of Environmental Law: As the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the 1871 Civil Rights Act have all failed as viable recourses for victims of environmental racism, legal scholars and the courts see nuisance law as recourse for those seeking environmental justice. Common law was historically the original legal space in which environmental claims were brought.[28]  In the wake of rollbacks in environmental law, lawyers have successfully returned to common law solutions for environmental nuisances in state courts.[29]  In fact, this approach has been powerful enough to invoke decisions that support anticipatory nuisance claims.  For example, in Village of Wilsonville v. SCA Services, a hazardous waste facility was not permitted to locate in Wilsonville because of the negative impact of the “anticipated nuisance” it would cause.  As this area of law advances, it will become possible that disparate impact will become an aspect considered in the overall “nuisance balancing” that occurs in a standard nuisance case.  In other words, in addition to weighing the private harm against the public good and the respective ease with which the concerned parties can alter their behavior to alleviate the nuisance, courts may also consider a nuisance’s cumulative impact in a community already stuck with a variety of other nuisances.[30]
• II. Takings Jurisprudence – Pollution as a “Permanent, Physical Occupation”: Takings jurisprudence also provides a possible recourse for those seeking environmental justice.  Takings claims are similar to claims of environmental injustice: in the former, a property owner sues a governmental entity for taking his or her property without just compensation and similarly in the latter individuals or groups of individuals sue the government entity for locating waste facilities near their property without just compensation. Plaintiffs have successfully claimed that the location of an air force facility next to their property was a “permanent, physical occupation” of their airspace, therefore constituting a taking.  Similarly, victims of environmental injustice can claim that toxins from nearby waste facilities are also a “permanent, physical occupation” of their air, thereby merging environmental justice claims with takings jurisprudence.[31]  Conservative courts are generally supportive of private property; if a share of clean air can be correctly construed as a property right, then the vast expanse of successful takings cases becomes available to victims of environmental injustice.[32]  Ursic explains the potential process with clarity:

“Part of the reason environmental hazards are situated in predominantly minority areas is that these social groups are less able to bear the expense of campaigning against them. For the same reasons, these groups cannot relocate after a siting decision has been made. Thus, they are forced to live with the risks.  A successful takings claim would require that the government pay local residents for its siting decision. This would give residents the choice whether to stay and would provide them with the financial resources to move.  Alternatively, governments would be more willing to negotiate with residents to buy them out and create ‘buffer zones’ around the environmental hazard, a technique that has proven successful in the past.” [33]

• III. Streamline the Complaint Process: Because the administrative complaint process is the only recourse minorities have against environmental racism, the EPA must streamline its complaint process to make it easier to make claims.  Administrators should decrease the number of steps necessary to make a claim and also shift the burden of proof for some steps onto waste facilities and government agencies.  Taking these steps will save time and money, allowing the EPA to cut into its current backlog of complaints.
• IV. Explicate Instances of Non-Enforcement: Right now, because the EPA is unable to keep up with the complaint process, victims of environmental racism are subject to arbitrary and lengthy delays that depend more on their ability to properly file a complaint than the severity of their circumstance.  Because the Supreme Court has made clear that disparate impacts can be addressed only so far as an enforcement agency is willing to, the EPA should clearly state a tolerable level of disparate impact, temporarily excuse claims that meet their standard, and levy a heavy hand upon the worst cases.  In the end, successfully handling severe case would likely create an incentive for minor cases to not get any worse.
• V. Research Indicators at Home & Abroad: The CRJ study should be revisited to examine location patterns in the last twenty years, testing the hypothesis that waste facilities are locating less often and in a less disparate manner.  Second, a similar study of dramatically larger scope should be undertaken to study facility placement patterns through out the world.  Undoubtedly, income will be a strong indicator of placement, but it will be important to find out what other variables make a strong showing.
• VI. Examine Indigenous Rights: A topic left unconsidered in literature on environmental racism in America is the conflict between waste facility placement and indigenous land rights.  On an international scale, the United States cannot legally or morally claim any right of eminent domain and in many areas private property is not an institution.  Despite the presence of treaties designed to protect indigenous land rights, waste facilities still manage to locate themselves on foreign soil without the welcome of their neighbors or even the proper purchase of land.[37]
• VII. Take Advantage of the Strengths of International Law: Increasingly, international law has upheld rulings in favor of a human right to the environment, a far cry from America’s limited reading of civil rights law.[38]  Although enforcement of international law and America’s stubborn isolationism are always problems, it is possible that pursuing the development of international human rights law will be more fruitful for the movement against environmental racism than its pursuit of legal remedy under civil rights law in the United States.  A similarly powerful route is possible in the pursuit of alien tort law, which defines some environmental infractions as crimes against humanity, punishable in the same way that genocide is.[39]  Additionally, international takings law still has the opportunity to be made more clear and consistent than takings law in the United States, making it an even more powerful remedy for environmental justice claims.[40]

Despite my earlier claim to the contrary, legal and regulatory solutions are not the only way to combat environmental injustice.  Recently, I became interested in Literacy for Environmental Justice, a San Francisco-based non-profit that, in addition to the usual NIMBY activities of any environmental justice organization, strives to redevelop and educate the Hunter’s Point community to make it a greener, healthier, and more sustainable environment.  Service learning programs, educational outreach, greening and clean-up projects, youth involvement in redevelopment, and the city’s first completely off-grid building all coincide with the efforts of communitarian and environmental planners elsewhere, directly challenging my argument that environmental injustice as a problem for policy makers, not planner, to solve.  In Hunter’s Point, they coalesce in one of the most pro-active strains of the environmental justice movement I have ever seen and show that communitarian and environmental planners could have clear positive social impact if they directed their skills and expertise in the direction LEJ has.

Notes
[25] Fisher 1994 is one example. [Fisher, Maria Ramirez. “On the Road from Environmental Racism to Environmental Justice,” Villanova Environmental Law Journal, Vol 5, 1994, p 449.]
[26] This argument seems disturbing, but it makes sense.  Essentially, $5 means more to a poor person than it does to a rich person.  Thus, returning a fixed level of utility a poor person is cheaper than returning that same level of utility to a rich person.
[27] Another remedy worth noting is the Dormant Commerce Clause, which arguably could be overruled, thus allowing states to regulate the flow of waste across their borders [Davies, Lincoln L. “If You Give the Court a Commerce Clause: An Environmental Justice Critique of Supreme Court Interstate Waste Jurisprudence,” Fordham Environmental Law Journal, Vol 11, Fall 1999, p 207.].  Alternatively, Congress could enact environmental justice law pursuant of regulating interstate commerce [Percival, Robert. “’Greening’ the Constitution: Harmonizing Environmental & Constitutional Values,” Environmental Law, Vol 32, Fall 2002, pg 867].
[28] “Even though regulation of environmental harms was historically rooted in common law tort doctrines such as negligence, nuisance, and trespass, the failure of the common law in dealing with modern environmental degradation problems led Congress to enact the modern environmental regulatory framework” [Yang, Tseming. “The Form and Substance of Environmental Justice: The Challenge of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for Environmental Regulation,” Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, Vol 29, 2002, p 143.].
[29] Antolini, Denise E. “Modernizing Public Nuisance: Solving the Paradox of the Special Injury Rule,” Ecology Law Quarterly, Vol 28, 2001, p 755.
[30] “By strengthening the nuisance plaintiff’s legal position through moving away from nuisance balancing and including disparate impact as an element of the tort of nuisance, the law will facilitate a more favorable position for environmental justice plaintiffs to negotiate a favorable GNA.” [Siegel, Janet. “Negotiating for Environmental Justice: Turning Polluters into ‘Good Neighbors’ Through Collaborative Bargaining,” New York University School of Law Journal Vol 10, 2002, p 147.]
[31] DiBari, John. “How the Sandoval Ruling Will Affect Environmental Justice Plaintiffs,” St John’s Law Review, Vol 76, 2002, pg 1041
[32] Percival 2002, pg 865
[33] Emphasis added. Ursic, Joseph. “Finding a Remedy for Environmental Justice: Using 42 U.S.C. § 1983 To Fill in a Title VI Gap,” Case Western Reserve Law Review, Vol 53, Winder 2002, p 497.
[34] Long, E. Andrew. “Protection of Minority Environmental Interests in the Administrative Process: A Critical Analysis of the EPA’s Guidance for Complaints under Title VI,” Willamette Law Review, Vol 39, Summer 2003, p 1163.
[35] Rabe 1994 goes into some depth describing a more open facility placement process based on negotiation and compromise rather than NIMBYism [Rabe, Barry. Beyond NIMBY: Hazardous Waste Siting in Canada & the United States, The Brookings Institution, 1994].  Of course, the plan I propose will be criticized no matter how it is employed.  If white neighborhoods get facilities without any compensation, then the plan can be accused of reverse discrimination.  If the same communities receive facilities with compensation, then minority communities will demand to know why they got stuck with free-riding incinerators while the white community next door got the park-laden medical waste plant.
[36] Richardson, Benjamin. “Environmental Law in Postcolonial Societies: Straddling the Local–Global Institutional Spectrum,” Colorado Journal of International Law & Policy, Vol 11, Winter 2000, p 1.
[37] de Bolivar, Maura Mullen. “A Comparison of Protecting the Environmental Interests of Latin American Indigenous Communities from Transnational Corporations under International Human Rights and Environmental Law,” Journal of Transnational Law & Policy, Vol 8, Fall 1998, p 105.
[38] Rodriguez-Rivera, Luis. “Is the Human Right to Environment Recognized Under International Law? It Depends on the Source,” Colorado Journal of International Law & Policy, Vol 12, Winter 2001, p 1.
[39] Herz, Richard. “Litigating Environmental Abuses Under the Alien Tort Claims Act: A Practical Assessment,” Virginia Journal of International Law, Vol 40, Winter 2000, p 545.
[40] Dowling, Anne C. “’Un-Locke-ing’ a ‘Just Right’ Environmental Regime: Overcoming the Three Bears of International Environmentalism–Sovereignty, Locke, and Compensation,” William & Mary Environmental Law & Policy Review, Vol 26, Spring 2002, p 891.
[41] Fisher, Michael. “Environmental Racism Claims Brought Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,” Environmental Law, Vol 25, Spring 1995, pg 291.

Flexner’s portrait clearly borrows from the visual style of Seurat but varies significantly from Seurat in its depiction of time.  The extremely granular nature of the drawing gives the viewer a sense of a seemingly infinite number of points of light, and any linear elements to the composition are lost in their accumulation.  While this approach readily falls into Seurat’s school of pointalism from purely analytical perspective, placing Flexner’s portrait side by side with an early sketch from Seurat like the one below makes the “point” even clearer.

Pointalistic Sketches: Seurat’s Seated Nude and Flexner’s portrait both rely on the variations of small points of light and dark to create value and form in their drawings.

Despite the similarities in visual affect, the two drawings vary considerably in how they depict time.  Seurat’s figure is still, almost sullen, perhaps having waited too long.  Although the image might seem to capture an instant in time, the figure seems as if it could have been in this same pose for hours or even days.  Even the lighting around the figure echoes its form, as if the air has settled in for the wait as well.  Flexner’s figure, on the other hand seems to have been caught in the moment.  Perhaps sleeping but about to turn over, perhaps breathing in or accepting a kind caress, the figure is still yet about to move, captured the very moment between poses.  The drawing seems more reminiscent of a grainy photograph taking in a mere instant than the patient, thoughtful drawing by Seurat on the left.

Also different from Seurat, Flexner’s portrait seeks to monumentalize in exquisite detail an ephemeral moment in time as completely as possible in a number of ways.  The portrait zooms in on the figure’s head such that it does not even fit on the entire page, creating a dramatic scene of an otherwise perhaps ordinary moment.  Flexner uses graphite as his medium, creating an extremely granular quality to the portrait and a sense that nearly every pore has been attended to.  This granularity extends to the entirety of the drawing, creating an almost tactile visual effect to the very air depicted around the figure.  Flexner is so effective in the depiction of a singular moment in time that the figure seems nearly to be breathing inward at the very moment portrayed in the drawing.

Despite the monumental scale of the head on the page, the granularity of the sketch lends itself to a intimacy that is carried out in other ways as well.  The sense that the viewer is sharing this moment in such specific detail with the subject of the portrait even as the subject seems unaware of the viewer’s gaze creates a remarkable intimacy to the portrait.  This intimacy combines with the monumentality of the portrait to relay a certain sensuality: the eye is drawn to the curve of the neck, the cheek that recedes into darkness on the lefthand side, the chin that softly lies across the center of the drawing.  The portrait could have been monumental in an imposing way, but Flexner keeps the harsh angles of the face off to the side so they are not the focal point of the drawing.  Instead, the portrait monumentalizes a sensual moment that engages not only the eye but nearly the viewer’s senses of touch and smell.

I must confess my interest in Flexner’s drawing was not deeply considered: his drawing jumped out at me, and I decided I’d think about the appeal later in writing this commentary.  It was actually through my master sketches of Seurat that I came to truly appreciate Flexner’s drawing.  I tend to rely heavily on line accumulation to create value, which leads to a somewhat dynamic, shifting form on the page.  Seurat and Flexner are both using media that rely on line accumulation but their attention to detail is so fine that the lines are completely lost in favor of the soft focus on varying points of light and dark across the page.  They are able to achieve a level of stillness and intimacy that is usually absent from my own drawings but through media I feel comfortable using and can fully appreciate.  Hopefully, I will be able to take these observations and execute them in my own drawings in the future.