The Boy Who Saw the Future/The Boy Who Was the Future

Like the title says. A bit of an enigma, maybe. I don't know. 12 inches by 9 inches, acrylic on board, 2008. Clicking on it makes it bigger.

Jürgen Waxweiler -- new show

Click for bigger view.

I've been a bit remiss in uploading this -- I received it a few weeks ago & it got buried in the summer stuff. Jürgen Waxweiler, whom I met in Jerusalem last year for the "Bare Life" show at the Museum on the Seam (see below) sent me a flyer for his show at the Galerie Marita Jaeger, Hasenfelder Str. 6, 52396, in Heimbach, Germany. Hope I got that address correct. The show runs from August 1, 2008 to 12 October, 2008. Didn't get this up in time for the opening, but I hope it's a great show.

"Hiroshima: Ground Zero" currently on exhibit at Museum on the Seam

Acrylic on board, 12" x 8", 2004.

This just in: I've been informed that my small painting, "Hiroshima: Ground Zero", which was previously a part of the "Bare Life" show at the Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem, Israel, is now on exhibit concurrently with (though not a part of) the new show "HeartQuake". Kudos to curator Raphie Etgar on putting together what I'm sure is another fascinating show.

HeartQuake deals with anxiety in contemporary life, and highlights artworks by Anselm Kiefer, Stanislaw Koba, Adam Adach, Stephan Kaluza, Asaf Ben Zvi, and many others. Here is a link to the exhibition page.

"We Are Trying to Change" by Eliot Katz

Preview of the book "Love, War, Fire, Wind: Looking Out from North America's Skull" to be published by Narcissus Press, Fall 2008. The drawing is "War Mask". Poem used by permission (& copyright) Eliot Katz. The ayton.net book preview page has been updated with several other poems.



We Are Trying to Change

Twenty percent of Iraq is dead or fled
and the moon over the Pentagon is purple

with glee. The war mask is on
& Congress has decided not

to de-fang it. There are desert valleys
and polluted streams all across the planet,

but the flames in Iraq have grown hotter
than the sparks in an old Albanian kitchen--

and this is a fire that we have seen
people we once knew light. So we spend

five nights each week doing our best
to extinguish. On nights six and seven,

we get no rest, but must place our minds
onto a different set of bedpost spikes.

A new British study says 1.2 million
civilians have died, a figure so stunning

it barely gets reported. Bad knees
and all, we are walking in the streets

hoping to help arrest our president. The city’s
police think we are their private comedy club,

but at least we are rushing the stage
& trying to change the color of the moon.

Eliot Katz NYC 2007

Preview page for the Katz/Ayton book

I've just put up a new page on my ayton.net web site for the forthcoming book collaboration with poet Eliot Katz -- showing the cover & 11 of the full-page drawings -- please click here.


"Farewell", brush & ink drawing, 2008, 9" x 6". The above drawing is a tribute to both Gregory Corso & Allen Ginsberg.

Provisional cover of Love, War, Fire, Wind.

Below is the working cover of the book:



It may remain as is, it may change...

The Logic of War - painting

Here is the color painting based on the drawing (way below somewhere) inspired by the poem by Eliot Katz.


Acrylic on board, 2008, 14" x 11". Click image for bigger.

The painting was pretty dark (both senses) & difficult to shoot. This is not a great photo, but good enough, I hope.

Love, War, Fire, Wind: Looking Out from North America's Skull

Below is the probable cover image from my collaborative book with Eliot Katz, and above is the probable title. As it stands now, the book has 60-odd ink drawings, mostly full-page, & a similar number of poems by Eliot, with a couple of prose pieces, also.


"North America's Skull" painting is 14" x 11", 2008, acrylic on board.

Themes of the book include politics (the Bush years, the Iraq War, globalization protests, etc.) as well as some more personal pieces by Eliot -- love poems and the like.

I'm hoping to have the book available in the next few weeks or so, via Narcissus Press, our small literary publishing house.

Below are some more examples of drawings from the book.


"Death of a Tower", brush & ink on paper, 2008, 9" x 6".


"Roswell", brush & ink on paper, 2008, 9" x 6".


"Requiem", brush & ink on paper, 2008, 9" x 6".


"Broken Bones", brush & ink on paper, 2008, 9" x 6".

Hall Gardner's "The Wake-Up Blast"

I thought I'd put a plug in for a new collection of poetry published by our (Diana & I) small literary press, Narcissus Press. The work is by Paris, France-based poet Hall Gardner, whom we have known for years now. It's a pleasure to bring his impressively international, politically-informed & very erudite poems to a wider public.



The cover painting, "Sub-Urban Landscape" is by Hall himself, a man of many talents. You can currently buy the book here on our online, on-demand printer, Lulu.com (price is $20). It will soon be available on Amazon, etc. I will post links.

Human Column

New brush & ink drawing from the book now workingly titled "Love, War, Fire, Wind: Looking Out from North America's Skull" by Eliot Katz & William T. Ayton. This drawing currently sits alongside the poem, "In Praise of the Seattle Coalition", though as this is a work in progress, it all could change.


Brush & ink on paper, 2008, 9" x 6". Click for larger.