Buttons for Sale at Zazzle Gregvan - Vote 4 Joe - Pro Choice

MEET VAL DEMINGS

Long before she would become Orlando's first female Chief of Police, Val Butler Demings learned from her parents about the American Dream. They didn't have much: two parents and seven children in a small wood-framed house in Jacksonville.

She took her first job at 14 as a dishwasher. Worked hard in school. Became the first in her family to go to college, working at a fast food restaurant to pay her way. She became a social worker, working to protect children in broken homes. Then, dismayed at a system that was leaving too many families behind, she signed up to become a police officer — an officer with a social worker's heart.

psychedelic art by Val Polyanin in Crescent City, CA

Val Polyanin emigrated from the Ukraine and now lives in northern Humboldt County, California, land of monumental redwood trees and foggy coastlines. For a time he was licensed to practice as a security guard, but the license has elapsed.

He displays a selection of his sculpture in front and inside of a roadside art gallery that appears to have been a railroad freight car, just south of the town of Crescent City; his primary target audience is the drive-by tourist. Polyanin’s works are created from a variety of media and many are painted with strong and sometimes discordant colors. And unlike many of the roadside art/sculpture stands that dot this northern stretch of Highway 101 – chainsaw-carved bears, mushrooms, and cutesy plaques – much of this artist’s imagery is disturbing: the Grim Reaper, shocked and crying figures, decapitated heads, and the like appear prominently among his oeuvre. Sizes range from table-top to larger than human scale. There are also vertical abstractions, however, that appear to be more about form than narrative, and expressionist paintings – both figurative and abstract – are displayed within the gallery.

The exterior works are viewable 24/7; when the artist is around and the art gallery is open, the interior pieces are viewable as well.

http://23.253.226.201/explore/collection/environment/val-polyanin/

Crescent City California Photographs - Harbor - Mermaid Redwood Sculpture - Coast Guard Tile Mosaic Murals - Lighthouse

If you can't come here in Person, here are Photographs of Crescent City to enjoy... However you can't experience the smell or the sound of gulls...