A Burnt Orange 🧡🤎

by my aunt Ydalia Diaz, who's been painting ever since I can remember I took a photo of this in 2009 when I visited my grandfather in the Dominican Republic, please excuse all the blurriness.  I’m showing a close-up of the painting first, then the full photograph so that its scale becomes more clear.  Here you can see a family member sitting beside it on his phone, bizarrely perched on a stack of four lawn chairs. Nevermind him. Or actually, do mind him. That strange detail is exactly why I took the picture in the first place.  I have always liked photographing strange moments that catch my eye. During my visit, there were a few: a kitchen sink overflowing with limes under running water, a can of roach spray twice the size of any I'd ever seen, a towering statue of ceramic Jesus standing on a bathroom counter.  So in a way maybe it makes sense that one surreal image ended up next to another. Ydalia's ability to create tender, life-like portraits always impressed me....

  Librarian on Trial, 2021 Whether the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation Facebook page approved this drawing I submitted (submitted for approval? 😉) or discovered it elsewhere, they recently shared it on their page with a black heart emoji, followed by about 100 likes and a handful of kind comments.   I wrote back (DM) simply to say thank you, and from that small exchange came an invitation to potentially participate as an artist vendor at SerlingFest , an annual event held in Rod Serling’s hometown of Binghamton, New York. The idea that some of my work- pieces inspired by The Twilight Zone episodes- could exist within a space that actively celebrates Serling’s legacy is both thrilling and humbling. I’ve since been in conversation with the organizers, and as of now, the possibility of having a table there feels very real. What’s especially meaningful to me is that this opportunity sits right at the heart of two identities I’ve carried for years: -Longtime Twilight Zone f...