Our friend Henry Lowengard turned 50 yesterday. We celebrated with him over the weekend but now I’d like to take a moment to appreciate all that is Henry.

–His kids call him Dadu
–He’s one heck of a husband
–He remembers everything you ever tell him
–He has a great heart
–He is a wonderful artist: go here to see his work
–He makes hilarious and masterful comics
–He is a human encyclopedia
–He’s brilliant (but everyone knows that)
–He’s soooo funny and fun to be around
–He’s lovable
–He’s adorable
–He’s a terrific friend
–He has a player piano and plays the autoharp
–He knows so many great songs
–He loves the songs of Burt Bacharach (and so many others)
–He’s performed at the Loser’s Lounge
–He’s a mainstay at WFMU
–He’s non-pareil, unlike anyone else you will ever know
–He makes the world a better place because he’s in it

From Hepcat: It’s not so much I don’t know where to start, it’s I wouldn’t know when to stop.

Here is something I found on his website; an artist’s statement, if you will, about his vapor paint work.

A river is not so much water as a shape that water makes. The geometry of the river changes the pressure of the water which flows through it, which in turn changes the shape of the banks of the river. The same applies to rivers of ice, air and earth. That which has one nature at rest may have another nature in motion.

This is the philosophical basis of my art: that gestures in time are not the same as gestures held, but there can be an expression of time in stasis by either providing multiple images of gestures in time or combining an amount of time into a single image or both.