B. ANNA ABADORF

“… exceptionally perceptive in the construction of a didactic world tainted with rich echoes of self. A self that at one time fears its rootedness in the flesh and enticed by that same sensuous reality.”
– Roberta Pitman

FELIX D. CALHOUN

“Poverty, ignorance and cruelty join hands in these three dimensional sketches. Even with such fleshed out characters it is impossible to tell for sure who are the bad guys and who are the good. … perhaps they are only us.”
– Ruben Sparks

WALTER N. CHOLLIT

“Some people can recreate the music of youth – that time when life danced gleefully to both crime and punishment. His are those realities. Places and times when stop meant go, barriers were gates, and now lasted forever or was instantly over.
– R. I. Carver

AARON C. CLUTTERMAN

“His is a dramatic darkness, awash in the kind of heated, class and race passions that set the south aflame in the past and again blazes in the hearts of our great cities. His quick challenges to our early perceptions of ‘family values’ are timely.”
– Stanley Stanton

BOB RUBEN SHALLOW

“…the ultimate in yuppie angst. He constructs characters that are pliable, disjointed and two-dimensional. There is no depth possible in these cartoon puppets. They are cutouts from an insubstantial reality…”
– Alan Robertson

TOMAS M. EPINACK

“We wonder if these people are as evil as they often are made to appear, or as benevolent as this creation might attempt to present them. Certainly, they might simply be stupid, or at least ignorant. But they are often so cruel and vacant that some fundamental intent must be manifest…”
– G. L. Gunn

MARION D. JACOBI

“… wander through a child’s playhouse of newly discovered sexuality and expression. She provides us an image of a tightly wound world of pinched smiles and polite hellos where truth is strained and in short supply.”
– Winett Ryder

ROBERT A. MANN

“Unfettered by structure, these characters inhabit a simple world. They are acted upon. They can only react, however ineffectually, as the forces that surround them dictate. Lest we forget, there but for the grace of god…”
– Udall R. Hightower, III

STANFORD S. PETERS

“Survival is the issue in his characters’ confrontation with their reality. To make it through is all. To somehow cope with fundamental dichotomies in the world that surrounds and often engulfs them. … no answers here, just possibilities without promises.”
– Roberto S. Verdadero

DRUBETTA RUFSTON

“The small interactions in her world constitute a rent in the fabric of a supposedly civilized culture. Simple interaction is a struggle. These figures fight just to maintain a desperate status quo.”
– Dr. Sara Middleton-Roth

MINY B. SIBLET

“These characters represent thousands of real people out there that are grabbing desperately for the thing that will make their world seem clearer, cleaner and more orderly. The great terror is that there are those who will quickly step forward with a solution. God help us all.”
– Christian Cleaver

MAYNETTE SISSOL

“She asks the larger question. Do we miss the real rewards of life by overlooking myriad small wonders in search of those too large triumphs that seldom, if ever, find ordinary people? Ordinary, alas, as most of us are.”
– Carol Croutch

DOOLEY SUTTON

“He can best be placed as a southern primitive I suppose. The strength, poignancy and deliberateness of his characters are, however, anything but primitive. … a dark powerful presence. “
– John Cuff

TULLA LOUISE STUDERFIELD

“Some people appear on first glance too fragile to survive. These figures are those. However, with familiarity we find submerged strengths. They take secret chances and lash out in hidden ways that allow them to bend before they break.”
– Agnes Renguat

ROLAND TRELISMAN

“It is easy to disavow the significance of the simple mechanics of aging when we are young. We only begin to die after forty. His people confront entropy head on. Everything and everyone fights, compromises or resigns. The winner, however, is always the same.”
– Markley Downman

HIRAM B. TULBISTON

“His figures represent the real people. Not those who stand higher than the rest. Not even those who gain notice as members of a significant group. No. These little people are but the mortar binding the bricks which create the structures on which we rely.”
– Shakala Lang

BEN ESTES WAIFAL

“We can sense the hollowness of those who are performing life to the best of their limited abilities. These are shaky facades built from bits and pieces of human detritus – hardly substantive enough to support style, much less substance.”
– Bob Libertoff

About the Author

Gerald Cannon

I growed up po and ignant in Alabama. Then I went off to college and became a socialistic atheistic business school grad with an MBA. Not wanting to add evil capitalistic bastard to my resume, I obtained an antidote degree -the MFA. What a difference a letter makes. Now I teach college and make art. That's more fun and I'm less prone to drift toward the dark side. So, at the advanced age of sixty.... I have chosen mind over matter, joined the League of Defensive Pessimists and have no better answers, only fewer questions.

View All Articles