About portfoliolongo.com

ARTIST'S STATEMENT: I want my artwork to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. I want it to shed light and call attention to beauty, coherence, and unity; and, I want it to cast doubt on falsehoods, oversimplifications, and absurdities. I’d like to be instrumental in deepening our awareness and appreciation of the fullness of life, including its complexities, ambiguities, and paradoxes. I draw and paint on an iPad with an Apple Pencil or my fingers using a variety of drawing/painting apps; although, I still work in wood and clay as well. iPads are portable and versatile, require little set up, and there’s no clean up. They’re the perfect medium for what I do. I can quickly convert ideas into illustrations and share them or time-lapse videos of them on social media. I can also prepare the images for printing on metal, paper, and canvas surfaces in a variety of sizes. BIOGRAPHY: Paul Longo has lived a relatively unconventional life. In his youth, he plowed through dyslexia (before teachers had ever heard of it) and learned that there is, indeed, more than meets the eye. In college, he read Don Quijote in Spanish for the first time and discovered an interest in anthropology. He went on to complete 3 graduate degrees and has lived and worked in 7 countries and 9 states since then. Paul has taught anthropology, education, Spanish, research and evaluation methods, and ESL at 6 different universities. These days he teaches digital art to adults with developmental disabilities and non-credit ESL to adults at a local community college. Paul was also a Benedictine monk and lived in a monastery for nearly 8 years, until he met and married his wife. Together they were survivors of Hurricane Katrina as residents of New Orleans. But it was not until 2013, while living in a downtown loft in Des Moines, Iowa, that Paul complained to his wife, a CIO in higher education, about not having either a basement or a garage in which to make art. A few days later she gave Paul her old iPad with an installed drawing app and said, “here’s a studio for your lap.” Since then, not only have iPads become larger and more powerful, but the number of drawing and painting apps has increased and each one offers a unique set of features to create original artwork. Nowadays, Paul takes his "studio” everywhere he goes. Throughout his eclectic journey, Paul has created and shared his art to make sense of the world, to give voice to new identities and experiences, and to engage more intentionally with others. To view more of Paul Longo’s works, digital and otherwise, visit his social media sites: www.portfoliolongo.com, twitter, YouTube, Instagram: @plongeaux, Facebook: Paul J. Longo

The iLighter

Posted on December 17, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

I’d been thinking about this one for years.

So, I found a couple of public domain images on line and played around with them, i.e. photo editing, in Procreate and iColorama; and, if you scroll down below,I used VideoShop to tell the story behind all this:

And now, iLighter, the documentary.

This Year’s Christmas Letter…PLUS a free holiday music video for the first 10,000 visitors!

Posted on December 15, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

Enjoy this year’s letter! Last year, you may recall, the letter was h; but, there was no music. This year is different. Thanks for visiting, and all the very best to you, your family, and loved ones!

Procreate, Phonto, iColorama

Santa’s Mood, an original portfoliolongo.com holiday tune:

Videoshop

When you see one on the kitchen floor…

Posted on December 14, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

…you know there’s a gazillion under the fridge.

Sketches, Procreate, iColorama

Standard Lobotomy: A 15 Sec. Animation

Posted on December 9, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

When we as Americans speak of our crumbling infrastructure, we focus on rusty bridges and other examples of tangible decay and neglect, and we tend to overlook the undesirable, long-term, and initially intangible effects on human capital precipitated by the steady erosion over time of investment in and support for public education.

Sketch Club, Photo Speak, Videoshop

Corner Johns

Posted on December 8, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

Click on either john to enlarge image to full size: 2429 ✕ 3507

Sketch Club

pencil drawing

Posted on December 7, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

See Gallery 1 on the side for other pencil renditions; why there’s even a Christmas-related, digital pencil only tangentially linked to this portfoliolongo theme.

Sketch Club, Procreate, iColorama

these goddamned guns

Posted on December 5, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

Oh, and this old post too.

For those unfamiliar with Romper Room and the Bend and Stretch Reach for the Stars song, click here on this short, YouTube link.

Paper 53

Barber Pole, Main St., Merced, CA

Posted on November 30, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

Nutritional Products, 551 Main St., Merced., CA 95340

Procreate

My own iPhone photo.
Progress video (accelerated), click here.

Vacillation Over Time

Posted on November 28, 2015 by portfoliolongo.com

Sketch Club

A few days ago I posted a drawing of a road sign that depicted, in theory, “four possible routes,” one of which is indicated as “temporarily closed.” In that post I referenced a paper by George Spindler that I think helps to explain these “four alternatives.” By all means feel free to check out that reference to see how Spindler applies this typology to what happens when prospective teachers undergo teacher education, how they integrate exposure to countervailing approaches to teaching and learning, and what effect that heterodoxy has on their teaching styles once in the classroom with real students. What’s stuck with me ever since I was first introduced to Spindler’s framework in the early 1980s as a grad student in anthropology, besides its timeless applicability in terms of teacher education, is its essential typological power and generalizability, especially in the polarized context of our current political discourse.

To shorten this a bit, I’ll pose a question. How many sides are there to the story? Two right? Two because you’re either right or wrong, right? Two because there’s good and bad, black and white, up and down, in and out, and so on, right? Well, you guessed it; not so fast, right? Right.

Spindler’s typology, while its used in a purely inconspicuous and instrumental fashion, helps us see that there are perhaps more than two sides to the story, as it were. And here’s the thing. There aren’t just three sides either, you know, that side that magically emerges whenever you look at both sides of the story…in what some might call a fair and balanced approach. No, no magic here, even though that’s heading in the right direction. Why? Because it’s very possible and even more tempting to look at two sides (or more) in an unfair and imbalanced way. In Spindler’s typology those who incompetently, unfairly, and inconsistently look at both sides of the story are identified as Vacillators. So now there are at least three ways to get carried away by the story: (See Temporarily Closed)

1. Exaggeratedly right-leaning (i.e., crazy from the get go coming from the Right). Derived from Spindler’s Reaffirmative Traditionalist,
2. Exaggeratedly left-leaning (i.e., crazy from the get go coming from the Left). Derived from Spindler’s Compensatory Emergentist, and
3. Incompetently and inconsistently both right-ish and/or left-ish leaning (i.e., even crazier coming at times from both sides without even knowing it). Derived from Spindler’s Vacillator, the most dangerous and destructive orientation.

Now, there is a fourth side that Spindler calls the Adjusted. This orientation requires the most cultural, communicative, and interactive competence. My aim is to identify myself as an Adjusted, but in all honesty, I admit that I’m not always successful.

Where do you see yourself?