Philip Long in NYC writing graffiti.

Found a great subterranean show on our last day in NYC at Nicholas Robinson Gallery. The exhibit by MARTIN WÖHRL was made to look like a subway station. Sharpie markers were left in a cup to encourage visitors to make their mark. I took the opportunity to do one of my poetic surrealism sketches titled "Bye Bye NYC". My friends band, Slide 5, provides the vibes, a tune called Rhode Trip.

PARTY TONIGHT at SOMArt SF. Brannan between 8th and 9th

Party starts at 6pm and goes late with live music, food n booze.

Take a whiff of Phil's leather mosaic up close and personal.

Come on down n git yer groove on f'shizzo!

I'll be there after 7.

The totals are in..

For my latest leather mosaic, Honoring Four Oakland Heroes, I'm creating a video documenting the work using still photos. My earliest pictures are dated June 29, 2009, but by then I had spent about a month sketching out compositions, creating the full size pattern and cutting out the OPD shield logo in various colors of leather. I jumped on the shield element of the composition early on because of it's level of detail and it would be a piece that could stand alone on display at the Best of the East Bay Party at the Oakland Museum.

I just tallied all the photos I took of the process: 5,784 photos taken with my Pentax K20D.

Thanks to the built in intervalometer it was much easier to capture the work. Now begins the process of creating a YouTube video using iMovie. I spent the greater part of the day going through the photos, whittling it down to 1806. This yields a video over seven minutes at a quarter second pre frame (iMovies minimum).

Next I'll trim it down further, getting it as close to the length of the song I've chosen as possible (about five minutes).

OPD Memorial Front page!

Just got an email from a friend out in the valley.

Front Page of the Argus Newspaper!

I'm honored to have my work noticed.

It was a goal of mine that this piece will keep the memory of Dunakin, Romans, Sakai and Hege alive.

Looks like it's on it's way.

Honoring Four Oakland Heroes gets some press!

A write up in the Contra Costa Times website was just posted a few hours ago.

I hoping I get it in print as well.

Better get my butt to the newsstand tomorrow.

Heres the link:

http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_13507524?source=rss

Out of the frying pan...

I've neglected myself to finish the OPD Mosaic. Just finished my first jog in at least two weeks. Man, it sucks to fall off the wagon. Now I'm gearing up to install last years mosaic, Ascension of John Long, at SOMART Center in San Francisco, along with creating a flyer to print up and email, and I have at least 5000 photos to put together into a stop animation video to post on youtube.... I think I need an intern!

OPD leather mosaic

Just bustin' my ass on this OPD Memorial piece. Just finished the uniforms after spending all day (7am-10pm) Saturday cutting leather. Then all day Sunday gluing and stitching the pieces together. Extra special thanks to my girlie for bringing me sandwiches and the like as sometimes I forget about eating when I'm deep in the process.

I still have the sky, the bay and the city streets to cut, glue and stitch before I can start putting the sections together. Then I'll build the stretcher bar frame to mount it. Finally I have to build my own portable wall to hang it on. All of this has to be done by Saturday morning when I go and install at the Meek Estate.

Dia de Los Muertos_ OPD Memorial

Just finished the four Officers faces.

Now on to the uniforms where I'll use a bit of leather donated by each of the officers families. Thanks to the families and Renee Hassna at the Oakland Police officers Association I have Officer Dunakins gun holster, Officer Sakais Police belt, a black dress belt from officer Romans, and Officer Hege's ticket book.

The ticket book is personalized with his name and badge number stamped into the leather. Hand tooling leather has never been one of my skills, I took the book to Tandy Leather Factory in Union City to see if they had the letter set so I could duplicate the names on the other officers uniforms.

Turns out the manager, Robert said Officer Hege made the book himself with supplies bought from that very store. When I tried to buy the letter set, he wouldn't take my money. "That's my donation to the memorial, it's the least I could do."