Finally: The end of the freezing bitter wind blowing off of the east river in Astoria, Queens. Spring! My solo show in Greenpoint, Brooklyn wrapped up in April followed by three group shows )The Upstairs Art Gallery, Phoenicia New York; Norfolk NYC art gallery, LES Manhattan; and Beezy Douglas Carnivale in Bushwick Brooklyn). Spring was a little crazy. With spring came the decision to venture to Oregon. Leaving old New York City for a cottage off the coast of northern Oregon, in the outskirts of Astoria. Astoria, Oregon (our poor mailman).

As spring blossomed, sadness occurred with the loss of a friendship, the death my little sweet dog, & having to give my extremely attached kitty cat up to man who lives in Rockaway, Queens and wears a fanny pack.

To ease the stress my favorite aunt (and one of my favorite humans), Aunt Marguerite had come to New York City to visit Heidi and me.  Her and her boyfriend Rick stayed with us for five days. I finally was able to show the two my favorite city.  I showed them parts of Astoria, Little Italy, and the Lower East Side.I also took them to the Empire State Building, my favorite pub thats been there thousands of years, small little holes-in -the-wall bars in the east village, many restaurants and bars and bars and bars (we are Irish), a little neat store where my Aunt bought hats for all of us and then to my church, my home of homes, my sanctuary, my university, my graveyard, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Weeks before my very loved In-laws also had visited us bringing with them my little nephew Mason. We took him to The Natural History Museum and then Central Park. The two of us played near a pond & created little boats to float ants across the endless sea. My little buddy. Heidi says Mason & I are the same person…even though i’m 31 and he is seven.

And then came my exhibitions. Every one of them were really good experiences and really different experiences. My friend Eric Clark had invited me to The Beezy Douglas Carnivale exhibit which was  a miniature festival in a building deep into brooklyn.  Within the halls of the space were my paintings, as well as Eric’s & another really nice guy’s work.  In the main room there was a band and then comedians and other acts. There was a small miniature bar and kitchen on the other side of the compound which really is like a four bedroom ground-floor apartment. It was more of a big party with bunch of fun dorky but also very cool and seemingly un-pretenious older kids. Two of my favorite people came, my very good friend Mike which I shamefully hadn’t seen in a long time, and Kaitlyn, my sister. Then the next week was the opening at Norfolk which was all day from noon to 9. There were good things if my memory serves me correctly, although I am not sure how good if I can’t remember of any of them. But the place is really cool and hip and the girl who runs it is really sweet and very kind individual. I believe there is a show every saturday, so I recommend you go or show your work or participate some how. It is also a store for jewelry and such other beautiful little things.

And last the opening was in Phoenicia (just outside Woodstock) The Art Upstairs Gallery. The Woodstock area really fascinates…it is a haven for older artists, most of whom spent their careers in NYC & now retreat to this wonderful woodland sanctuary. It was extordinarily different for me.  My paintings were hung in the presence of artist’s who have been creating art before my birth.  It was a bit intimidating at first but after a few glasses of wine I was fine.  There were Interesting conversations happening all around us….. not some of the “talk” like you get in NYC…, but REAL art conversations. The night was a great experience.  BUT, now I am trouble…. A couple of weeks after the show I made arrangements to pick up these very important paintings.  When I finally reached my contact person at the gallery I was only able to find two of my three paintings.  I had taken the bus from New York City to Woodstock and then another 20 minute car ride to Phoenicia.  I woke up when leaving the Woodstock stop. The driver had let me out on the way out of town. From there I started to walk in the direction to Phoenicia. Counting on a person to stop and drive me to the small village as my thumb waved in the air. A nice man had stopped and drove me a couple minutes down the street to an area that receives good amount of traffic. After a couple of people stopped and ask where I was going each of them suggested that I stay there, where it was my best chance to get a ride to Phoenicia. A woman saw me and was extremely kind to drive me all the way to the gallery. In the tiny town we searched for my man. The gallery and the store underneath it were closed. The trusty old hardware store clerk knew where the gallery owner lived and gave me directions to the house (of course the cell phone did not work in the mountains). We found him. He took me to the gallery and in a back room of the gallery two of my pieces were laying on the ground next to many more paintings. And that is when I found only the two. Now I have written to the guy several times via email & have been calling…. it’s a very important painting that is missing. At the last moment I caught the last bus going back to the city. Hopefully I sold the painting & they’ll be sending me a nice check…. otherwise, what can I do in this situation? Arghhhhh!

I am interested in things that are obscure. James Buchanan is certainly that. I have been thinking of portraits of humans, (as opposed to animals) for a long time now. How relevant is a painting of a portrait today? I am still not so sure and would love the discussion on the topic. I decided to make a small (acrylic) 12″x12″ picture of a important figure that most Americans know very little, if anything, of.  This is a quick study, a portrait painting of a President that has been dead over a hundred years. I should say that I was not able to find a portrait of Buchanan in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I did however look at portraits from 19th century American painters and some French paintings from the18th century in particular.
It should be noted now that this president is arguably the worst president in our history. Read why. {I was not able to have this little piece edited, my apologies now for the lack of power I have to do so myself. There will be errors in spelling and grammar, hopefully it won’t be too distracting.}

James Buchanan
James Buchanan was the fifteenth president of the United States from 1857-1861 and was the last president to be born in the 18th century.  He was born April 23rd, 1791 in Cove Gap near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.  President Buchanan was the only president in history to be a bachelor.  His orphan niece, Harriet Lane, served as First Lady, the White House hostess, who was in charge of social events.   Mr. Buchanan, in his late twenties was engaged to wed Miss Ann Coleman who happen to be five years younger than him.  There are different stories on how their nuptials were cancelled. One was that he developed cold feet.  But it is also said that she had broken off the engagement because of rumors that Buchanan was marrying her for money and that he was seeing other women.  Buchanan never spoke of his feelings on the  matter.
James Buchanan graduated from Dickinson College with honors in 1809 although he was expelled for bad behavior for a short while. He had passed the bar in 1812 and began his political career in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1814 serving as a Federalist for two years.  He was elected to the 17th United States Congress on March 4th, 1821.  He served as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and was part of the impeachment proceedings against James H. Peck, judge of the United States Court of the District of Missouri.  (He was eventually acquitted). Buchanan did not seek reelection and was the ambassador to Russia from 1832 to 1834.  He was elected to the United States Senate in December 1834; he was reelected in 1837 and then in 1843.  He resigned in 1845.  After declining the nomination to the United States Supreme Court in 1844 by President James K. Polk. Mr. Buchanan became President Polk’s Secretary of State from 1845 to 1849 despite the objections from the Vice President George Dallas.  Buchanan served as minister of the Court of St.James (Britain) from 1853 to 1856, during which time he helped draft the Ostend Manifesto, which proposed the purchase of Cuba from Spain in order to extend Slavery.
Buchanan was nominated for president in 1856 because at the time he was in England where he remain untainted by the unusually heated race.  Two days after Buchanan’s inauguration The Supreme Court announced it’s decision in the Dred Scott case.  Influenced by Buchanan,  The Supreme Court ruled that because slaves, and former slaves, were not citizens they had no right to sue for their freedom.  Also the Court declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which banned slavery in a portion of the Louisiana Purchase, unconstitutional. Needless to say Buchanan was sympathetic to the South’s cause.  He had declared to a southern Senator “to arrest, if possible, the agitation of the Slavery question in the North and to destroy sectional parties.  Should a kind Providence enable me to succeed in my efforts to restore harmony to the Union, I shall feel that I have not lived in vain.”  The economic situation also troubled Buchanan’s administration with the devastation of The Panic of 1857.  The Panic of 1857 was a sudden downturn in the economy. A recession first emerged in late in 1856, but the successive failure of banks and businesses that characterized the panic began in mid-1857. While the overall economic downturn was brief, the recovery was unequal. The panic began with a loss of confidence in an Ohio bank, but spread as railroads failed. More than 5,000 American businesses failed within a year, and unemployment was accompanied by protest meetings in urban areas. Eventually the panic and depression spread to Europe, South America and the Far East. No sign of recovery in the northern parts of the United States was noticeable until about a year and a half later. The full impact did not dissipate until the Civil War.  Also in 1857 Buchanan received false reports that the Governor of the Mormon-dominated Utah Territory was planning a revolt.  In November of 1857 the President sent the Army to replace Governor Brigham Young. When Young agreed to be replaced by a non-Mormon Alfred Cumming and to allow the Army to enter the Utah Territory and establish a base, the Congress condemned the action and the press had labeled the Utah War “Buchanan’s Blunder”. The troops would soon be recalled back east when the Civil War erupted.  To make matters worse,  in 1860 the House investigated the administration for bribery and extortion.  Although a partisan committee was formed, with three Republicans and one Democrat, it was unable to establish grounds for impeachment.
In 1860, the Democratic Party finally split in two, allowing an unknown railroad lawyer from an upstart party, the Republican Abraham Lincoln, to win the White House. The election of Lincoln who clearly opposed to the extension of slavery outside existing Southern states had scared the south. Six weeks after the election, South Carolina departed the Union, more states followed within another six weeks.  The lame-duck Buchanan took little to no effort to stop the secession.  By the time Abraham Lincoln took office the new emboldened Confederacy had set up a govenment.  President Buchanan was eager to leave the White House before the real disaster ensued.  On Buchanan’s final day as president, March 4, 1861, he had said to Lincoln, “If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man.”  He vanished from the public and retreated to his home in Pennsylvania seeing only close friends until his death in 1868.
Once again it is an easy argument that James Buchanan, Jr. was the worst president of the United States of America.

Hope you can make it, 139 Norfolk Street, NY,NY

Hi Folks. The show is going to be up until the end of March. Hope you can make it out to see it before it closes. Below are a few photos from opening night. Thanks to everyone who made it out.

Hi folks!
I am hoping you can join me to celebrate my latest work entitled “And Other Oddities” a solo show, at Thai Café in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The show opens next Tuesday night, Feb 9th from 6PM to 8PM. Please try to attend and enjoy drinks and appetizers and art. The show is up until the end of March.

Thanks and Hope to see you there! Let me know if you need directions!
David Sloan

Hi my name is David. Welcome to my land. Within “Necessary Notes” I want to indulge myself by conducting this page as if it were a segment of a printed publication. I will write small articles, give interviews with folks relevant to these times, and perhaps provide small antidotes about life. Hey, maybe i’ll even post a recipe or two I create for dinner. I do hope you do like visiting my website and the images of my paintings. Please email me for thoughts, article ideas, or if you want to submit something you’d like me to feature on “Necessary Notes.”