My non profit organization for my city

IDLE HANDS WORKSHOPS will be for all artists (a local non profit organization). I want to start a non- profit organization for local artists in Canton, Ohio in the building of the old Canton Arts/ graphics building because I am a starving artist myself in Canton. I currently have my entire studio and darkroom in my parent’s basement and I’m running out of room. I want the old Canton Graphic Arts building. My previous boss used to own it, Harold Thomas, renamed the business J & R Photographic services and rented out spaces to local entrepreneurs. It’s beside Papa Gyros and now I don’t know who owns it. I’d like to buy it from whoever owns it because it would be perfect for my project!! The basement has many darkrooms, a large shooting studio and many floors for doing art and business. I’d love to have that large grey building on Cleveland Ave. because I use to work there. I’d love to have Mr. Thomas’s help along with his previous photographer that trained me. His name was David and he’s an amazing photographer/ artist!! If anyone can help, please let me know. Its on Cleveland Ave., beside Papa Gyros, is a beautiful grey building, beside a cemetery, and I’d love to restore it. Thank you for your help in advance...

I am trying to help bring my dying city of Canton, Ohio back to life.  I graduated in 2000 from McKinley Senior High school and was greatly involved in the marching band, school bands, church choir, church hand bells, church youth group, outreach programs for the community and whatever else I had time to do to help my community.  My family has been greatly involved in the community and most of all the church of President McKinley, ever since my Martin grandparents moved to Canton from Southern Ohio, back in the 1950's.  Well, they became a very large family with 7 children and my dad is the baby, now 54, and his name is David Martin.  I am his son, David Brian Martin, II.  Our family has been greatly involved in the community since my dad was a young lad, and were literally this areas "sound of music" family or even like the Carter's of June and Johnny Cash.  They all still sing and are very amazing musicians in both voice and instrumental.  Grandpa was the deep and powerful bass that when he sang, everyone heard and were in awe.  Grandma still sings the high soprano and still sings in her church, along with her family and me when we're able.  Well, all the children fit in beautifully in harmony and ironically my dad, the baby, has the highest tenor voice I've ever heard on a man.  He can hit notes that make one question how he did that but as he says, he uses his "high" voice but I can't currently remember the musical term he uses, because it truly does disturb me to even try since I'm a bass and baritone at times.  Well, the men of the family are still in Canton, Ohio and they have other careers outside of music.  Even though my dad is possibly the best Tuba player and teacher in the area, he has decided that he also enjoys driving fuel truck for Marathon.  There he writes poems, music, and composes music on his down time.  So, one could say that with his music education degree from Mount Union College, in Alliance, Ohio, that he is a little over qualified to be a truck driver.  However, like his father and family, he is very humble.  His dad was a carpenter, deep bass singer, teacher, family man, disciple of God, helper of the community, and church leader.  His legacy continues and will live on through his now very large and spread out family because our family now stretches from coast to coast.  We are so large that we have our annual Martin/ Elliot family reunion every summer in Sprinfield, southern Ohio because we have decided that is the most near location for the majority of the family. Well, I am also blessed to have a very loving family on my mother's side, who was brought here from a Naval veteran, who served in Korea, received a purple heart for climbing out on the damaged wing of an air plane and saving those on it, including himself, by repairing the damage.  He also walked the beach in Pensacola with the President of the United States, who my grandpa had said that he “could not keep up with because he walked very fast paced. “ Well, my grandfather, Roger Yoho, came from a very proud Native American family of the Blackfoot tribe.  He is a very stout man, played defensive tackle in high school, is around 5'6", his great grandfather was an Indian chief, whereas his dad was a farmer, he went on to college to receive his bachelor's in education where he taught as an electrical teacher for over 30 years in the local high school system.  He also built his own home for his family, worked for multiple contractors outside of teaching such as Diebold, TnT Appliances in Louisville and ran his own electrical shop out of his house.  He is also a very honorable man and a man of God that didn't take any nonsense from anyone, especially his own students, who still write him gratitude letters to today. Outside of his electrical career, he was also a community serviceman through being a teacher of his church, singing in his choir, playing the bugle as he did for wake up call in the navy, and however he can aid the community, as they desired. Well, the trait that I received from both grandparents is the will to succeed, pride in my work labor, and myself, ability to team build, my arts and crafts, my ability to multi task and "connect the dots" to different problems, problem solve, work ethic, never quit attitude, love of God and man, and love of my city. I have many more examples to provide but I need to get to my point and that is I received my BFA from the University of Akron in Photography and minors in Commercial Photography and Painting.  I did try to double major in both Graphic Design and Music Education my Freshman year, but became overly overwhelmed and had to eventually alleviate the stress by dropping my best grade at that time, music theory.  So, I decided to focus on art because out of the many scholarships I had received for college, I had chosen the University of Akron because they did offer me an art scholarship and the school of music also allowed me into the school of music.  Though, I was disappointed that I couldn't remain as committed to music as well, I did take a few music classes and even played 3 years out of my 4 years in college in the Zips marching band, where I proudly played my tuba as I had once done in high school, at the McKinley Senior High School, where my dad was they had brought script Ohio from an alumni from both McKinley and The Ohio State University.  My dad was the first to dot the i in 1976 and did it all 3 years until 1979.  Then, i followed in his footsteps and dotted the i, where I decorated the bell of my airbrush by using a technique I had learned from my Commercial Arts teacher.  I covered the bell with a piece of art illustration paper, cut out 4 small holes around the bell so my powerful sound wouldn't blow out the paper that was being held into place with duct tape, and I airbrushed a Bulldog chewing on a Massillon Tiger, where the tail was visibly seen coming out of the Bulldog's mouth.  Thankfully, that game was on McKinley's home turf of the Football Hall of Fame's Fawcett Stadium because I received an ovation from the home stands but was booed from the visiting Massillon stands.  The embarrassing part about the whole situation is that Fawcett's artificial turf is known for being very hard and I twisted my ankle while performing La Regiment.  Then, as i was limping out to dot the i of OHIO, I couldn't strut.  So, i made up by bowing as best as I could and waving to both sides.  Then, as I usually do, even though I'm of small size I make up for it with my heart, hot air, and loud sound.  I blasted as loud as I could for the home side to hear LeRegiment be played right and the crowd went mad. Then, again two years ago, in 2013, McKinley's band director, my former Freshman and jazz band director, had asked my dad and I to assist him with bringing quadruple script OHIO to Canton's Fawcett Stadium for the first time ever.  Well, the band was 1/3 the size it was during my glory days of the 1990's when Canton was proud of our Bulldog tradition and our band was the largest it had ever been, around 300 students, and the football team had won back to back state championships and the national championship in 1997.  Mr. Robert Newman told us that his plan was to use his current band, all former McKinley alumni, and even middle school student to fill in spots.  We proudly accepted the opportunity and when we found out that we were both dotting the Home i together, my heart dropped.  It was an honor to follow in my dad's shoes because they were always too big more me and he taught me everything I knew about music, playing instruments and the baritone and tuba, and taking pride in my work and gifts.  Since McKinley has performed script OHIO as tradition since my dad's day in 1996, when his band director, Mr. Ward had introduced it, the stadium knew it was coming.  But when they say that we were playing quadruple script in that stadium for the first time in it's history, and every side had OHIO written in it, the home stands went crazy.  I couldn't hear myself play and I know that I play loud.  I've been told by many to quiet it down because blatting the horn sounds like moose farts.  When you create moose farts, you are loosing control of your mouth composure and my dad taught me better.  However, growing up in the day of "more bass" taught me that I get a bigger reaction when I play louder.  Well, dad and I followed the majorette and strutted out to the spot above the eye, we had worked out our way of bowing, and it was that while he bowed to the home side, I bowed to the away side, and then we switched.  After we bowed, we played proudly with all the breath we had in us for two "old" alumni.  After we were walking off the field, my dad asked me how I liked playing with him and I couldn't stop smiling.  Needless to say that's not the first time I've played in the band with my dad.  He's in the musicians union and has gotten me the privilege of playing with him in the Stark County Fair Band ever since I graduated high school.  So, including high school, I have marched in approximately 11 NFL Football Hall of Fame Parades, been in 3 NFL Hall OF Fame Game Halftimes, at least 10 memorial day parades in Canton, and have played and marched with the band in around 6 annual Stark County Fairground Band week long performance.  Also, I have displayed my art and photography in the Stark County Fair's annual art exhibit and has lost count of the awards and ribbons I've one.  In 2002, in the very building that I want to use for Idle Hands Workshops, the old Canton Graphics Arts building, and when my employer last owned it, it had many different storefronts in it including his J & R Photographic Services, where he served the community as the communities local film developer, printer, photography, and Photoshop services, I had worked for Harold Thomas during my summer off from college after my Sophomore year and after I had declared photography as my major.  He was a long time member of my family’s church, Church of the Savior, United Methodist Church, and my pastor and friend had been told that he was in need of summer help.  So, I offered me services and learned much from him and his photographer and darkroom specialist, and my mentor.  i learned much that summer that I am thankful for.  I even got to do a lot of printing and developing for the community and myself.  That summer, the Canton Museum of Art had a photography competition and I printed all the black and white for the competition.  My mentor Dave printed all the color.  Well, it turned out that I had the privilege to print two of my own prints along with my best man from college and my wedding, Bill Guy (who would continue with his photography education and receive his MFA from Columbia in Chicago.  Now he is teaching at a University in Chicago and his work is phenomenal! We also had our photography senior show together at the new art gallery in Canton, Ohio, 2nd April, and that was prior the start of their famous First Fridays).  I printed mine because I had one 1st and 3rd in the college division and Bill Guy had won the Best of Show, as I would have expected.  Though he did lecture me for not cropping it as he wanted.  I had cropped his image based in aesthetics whereas he wanted it cropped based on conceptual mean (my bad).  Since, graduating college, I have been trying to literally find myself and my goals that i want to fulfill prior my final breath on this earth because I am very stubborn since I am a Taurus Bull (my birthday is April 28th).  I've worked for many photographers, artists, retail company’s, back room stock shifts, truck unloader, a photographer in the United States Navy, and mostly Substitute Teaching throughout my community for the past decade off and on.  I have also been struggling immensely to get my own art and photography studios running since my medical discharge from the Navy in the summer of 2011, where I became so depressed that I turned to alcohol (a lot actually) and tried to commit suicide several times because I thought that God had abandoned me.  I though that I had become a complete failure and the Navy was my final chance at starting a new life so I could make my family, myself, and my God proud of me once again. I was a straight A student thought school and college and in the real world I felt like a complete failure.  Everything I touched seemed to break, including myself, my ex wife, and my aborted child.  My mental break down began mostly when my ex wife felt her and I weren't ready in any way for a child and her parents encouraged the abortion.  Well, my love for her and life dissolved and I begged God to destroy me.  Well, after the Navy, I turned back to my love of art for therapy.  I painted non-stop for 2 years and then went to a Christian revival weekend with 20 strangers that were men who I didn't know.  Since then I started turning back to God.  Recently, I gave all my sorrows, sins, weakness, illness and mental illnesses to God.  I put my complete trust in Him as a friend at my recent job told me to do.  Well, after the military failure, I was put on many different mental medication that caused be to be overly fatigued, sleep most of the time, didn't stop the migraines, actually made everything worse, and even caused me to gain much weight.  So, I applied to a job at Lowe's this past summer working in the garden area so I should start to get back into shape by doing physical labor and loading 40 plus pounds bags of mulch into vehicles the entire summer.  I loved the hard work even though it was very physically demanding. I'm on my way to getting back into shape and getting my life back into order.  Currently I'm cleaning "house" so I can prepare to run my art studio, photography studio, and most of all my non profit studio for my community, Idle Hands Workshops. With my newfound love of life and accepting Christ back into my heart, my pride in everything is returning, as is my stubbornness to not fail. I'm a Taurus Bull and I do not break.  When I'm pushed to my breaking point by all that life has to offer, I withdraw from society, get on my knees in prayer, meditate for answers, strategize for solutions, and snap back breaking everything that block my path to success.  I took the military oath for a reason and I am a true believer in giving my life to my country and community.  Since my commentary is dying and trying to be a new art community, as well as the NFL Hall of Fame building it's football village, I feel that together we can help save this city and return her to her glory days where she was the thriving city she was because she is located on the Lincoln Highway that leads to Chicago, Illinois, and the West Coast.  My Professor and mentor from the University of Akron, Andrew Boroweic, is a well-known photographer/ artist that has created many amazing photographs and books, including one where he documented Canton, Ohio many years ago.  His most famous book is Along the Ohio and he is currently documenting the entire Lincoln Highway from coast to coast.  I even saw his recent show at the Massillon Art Museum the other year and spoke with him about my recent art at that time. My plan is to design the old Canton Graphic Arts Building into an artist haven or paradise. I plan to restore the 4 darkrooms and film process rooms in the basement and I even bought some of the darkroom supplies and enlargers from Harold Thomas, for my own personal darkroom in the basement of my house.  I then want to use the Commercial photography area with the 20 foot ceilings as a shooting and trying room, the 1st floor will have offices, the 2nd floor will have classrooms and workrooms where local artists will come in and teach inspiring artists of all ages.  Then, the top floor will be private studio space for local starving artists and painters that need room to do their artwork.  That is my current plan and like the darkroom in my basement that my buddy Bill Guy had worked in when I finished it in 2008 and called it a mini Meyer's School of Art darkroom, which I took as a compliment because I was a lab tech there my Senior year.  My overall goal is to provide the community the opportunity that I had when I lived in the Meyer's School of Art for 4 years.  I was in that building almost every capable moment I could outside of the classroom because I thought that if I worked as hard as I could, I would be the greatest artist that I could be.  I was there from waking around 9am until around 4 am every night.  I knew every inch of that building because I worked in every room at night when I needed it.  I befriended the janitors and they gave me permission to be there whenever I wanted.  I even slept on the couch in the Advanced Photo darkroom class while my 11x14 inch fiber footprints washed for over 20 minutes prior to me putting them on the drying rack.  I actually didn't want to graduate from college because I loved it so much there and loved working on my art every minute of the day.  I still love that but have struggled doing it on my own.  So, I'm turning to the barter system since our current corrupt financial system is dying and the dollar is no longer worth the paper it's printed on.  I know all about that and it began ever since President Wilson sold our economy to the private banks of the Federal Reserve.  Socialism is not the answer and is the reason it is failing everywhere.  So, along with hard work and selling my art, and creating the books series I'm working on from my travels out west for a long period of time, where I literally photographed everything in site, I plan to raise all the money myself.  I will not allow the government or private banks to get involved because then they have control and the always corrupt and destroy their ideas and projects because of their greed.  This will not be a normal project and you can be assured of that.  Neither my business partner nor me will bend or fall to any deceptions.  We have a plan in place and will be following our own playbook based on years of study and trial.  I have big plans for the project and would eventually like to turn it into a community art university where it is like a college art campus but you only have to pay what you can afford to keep it running. That is my current plan and it may develop. It will be an art campus where it is ran and taught by artists for inspiring artists.  "Art saved my life and I believe it can save the lives of other's whose struggles I can help with through therapy, teaching, mentoring, and team building."

Idle Hands Workshops will be dedicated to me Grandfather Robert Archibald Martin.  He had a saying that "idle hands are the devil's hands".  I had found the book that he was given to fill in on his final days of life in 2008.  H had written about his entire life and everything he had believed in and felt he could've done better.  However, I truly believe he was a Godsend from Heaven and a modern day prophet.  He had originally started going to college to be a church minister but his life took a major detour when he met his wife and the patriarch of our entire family.  They were inseparable from the moment they met as youth until his last dying breath at the time of his 80th birthday.  They taught the love and compassion and unity of family that our martin clan still holds tightly dear no matter the situation.  I leaned so much from him and my dad that the information and feelings need to be passed on to others.  My Grandma breaks my heart every time she says she wishes to be with him.  It's not just because I'll miss her, it's because I haven't ever felt that kind on bond and unity with another woman being.  The closest bond I have near to that is with my now 10 year old pug, which I refer to as my best friend and daughter.  My ex wife and I actually got her together as a symbol for our family my pug, Baby-Girl, was events flower girl in our wedding.  Baby and I have been inseparable ever since the day I first laid eyes on that little runt that has a little snout that sticks out like a bulldog's and is deaf and fears literally nothing.  She has even been known to share out Rottweiler's and pit-bull’s from my yard.  When a larger pit-bull had her by the throat because she challenged him, she went after him when that dog had been pulled off of her.

Well, when my Grandpa Robert Martin had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it wasn't his first cancer but he had beaten the other's as my mother's dad had also done because they are from a generation where real men don't back down from anything or anyone, which was passed down to me.  We knew that he wouldn't have much time because he refused to go through the chemo treatments after watching how they had sickly affected others.  So, instead of going through that humiliation, he chose to live his final months from June through September living like he was dying.  He was a new man and it seemed like he was at peace with returning home to Heaven soon.  Though, like Jesus Christ, I could see the fear of pain and the unknown of the afterlife in his eyes.  I know because I have the fear of the unknown everyday through my anxiety.  Yet, he traveled the country with his wife and their oldest daughter in the RV she had bought with her retirement funds.  I'm so glad he got to travel all over the country because this land of America that was given to us from God is so beautiful.  I could see the fear but I could see the strength and knowing that he also possessed because he knew God since he was a Son/ Man of God.  I've been told that his bedtime was after the late night new around 11pm and every morning he awoke around 4 am to read his Bible and spend time with our Lord. So, watching that peace of the knowing actually brought peace to me when he had passed and we celebrated his life after his 80th birthday came and went.  We celebrated his life at our family church and a few months after he and my dad had sang at my wedding.  Even though my ex wife and I knew we weren't going to last much longer we didn't say a word because we knew that it would make the situation worse.  Even though we eventually ended our relationship, I am thankful that she was there at my side for that event. She was really a sweet and innocent girl that my anger at life hard caused her to eventually have enough and I only wish her happiness.  We could have had what my grandparents had, but my stubbornness and anger at life, God, and myself ruined any chance for happiness that we could have had.  

I do have one special memory that I was going to share through my artwork but I'm glad I can't.  When my grandpa was in his hospice bed grasping for his last breaths of air, and Grandma had asked for privacy so she could spend one last time with the man of her dreams, I actually hung around with my camera.  You see, I don't photograph for myself.  I have taken it upon myself to capture all of the most treasured and memorable moments that I can witness.  Even though it broke my heart to see my Grandmother cradling my once strong as nail carpenter, mechanic, church leader, and man of God's frail body, I forced myself through my watery eyes to snap one picture os the most romantic moment I have ever seen.  I know that it might not sound romantic but I know that I'll never have the opportunity to share that with another person.  I do not deserve that moment because of the person I chose to become by wondering off of God's path that he had laid down for me, ever since I chose not to pursue the ministry calling I felt after high school.  I chose to pursue my own desires and chose art and it has been the biggest regret of my life.  I may enjoy making art but with my OCD, it has been complete torture.  If the final image is not the best that I know it can be, then I failed and I have yet to make that one image that shows what I want to reveal to the world.  I thought that the image of them lying together would've been that image because I have been photographing and painting my families moments for a long time.  My biggest inspiration and hero is my dad and I know that I'll never measure to even half the man/ musician/ man of God he has become.  If I could even be an ounce of what he offers, I would be a very fortunate man and know that I did God's work. I know because my mother says everyday that I'm nothing like my dad in a condescending voice.  My dad is like no man on earth and that is because he was raised by two of the most loving, compassionate, and humble people that I have the pleasure of calling my Grandparents.

Well, I was going to make that painting of my Grandparents final time lying together as a trip tech in mixed media.  The image go them lying together was going to be a watercolor and then the one's on both side were going to be colored pencil drawing of their portraits.  The portrait on the left was going to be a Sepia warmed prisma colored drawing of their first wedding picture.  Then, the drawing on the right was going to be their final portrait that I had taken for the church directory that following winter.  However, when I went to start the project and print out the pictures for reference, all the pictures from those last days were gone and I have never deleted any digital files in my life.  So, I failed yet again.  Though, I believe that the strong Grandpa, father family man, and husband did not want to be remembered that way.  So, I'm doing a different drawing for my family that I found of his last family reunion where he has his arm around my Grandmother and his wife for one of his last times and they are sharing that moment as they have so many before in laughter.

I know because I traveled as much as I could from Ohio, to New York to Buffalo, to Canada, all the way down to St. Petersburg Florida, along I 10 to New Orleans, through Arizona and the mule ride down the Grand Canyon and Sedona National Park, through Nevada and Las Vegas, to Betty, Nevada, to Death Valley, up the coast of California to San Francisco and Golden Gate bridge, and then back down though the southern states of Texas and all those to St. Petersburg, Florida, and then back up the coast to Canton, Ohio, in 2009.  I've been over most of the country but still have placest to travel to and photograph, including Alaska and Hawaii.

My entire life I have observed every detail that life provides including all the little intamate moments.  I've been turning those into painting fro a long time. Then, when I discovered photography and the darkroom, I started studying photographer's that captured the moments that ordinary people miss.  Henry Carteir- Bresson called those “the Decisive Moments" that only the gifted photographers and artist could capture. He watched for everything in the viewfinder to align for the perfect moment prior to touching that shutter.  That is why he had said "the camera is the extension of my eye."  I have studied many different street photographer's from Cartier- Bresson (the father of modern photo journalism, Henry Frank, Garry Winnogrand, Dorthea Lange, Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans, to today's best street photographer's and I truly love the photographer's that had done the Gund project in Cleveland for a decade and finished the project and book A City Scene.  The first artist that got me hooked was that of Norman Rockwell, who I've always been inspired to paint like even though, I'm very impatient.  Then, I discovered the afro man painter Bob Ross, who painted the infamous 'happy trees' and I've studied him in depth since. I also study Thomas Kinkade, who stole my title, even before I knew it was mine, "the painter of light".  I call my self that because we as photographer's say we paint with light and in commercial photography, I learned that technique.  So, my abilities have expanded much throughout my years and I do have much to offer to inspire artists of all ages.  I also have many connections throughout the world because of my connection through growing up and now social media, that I'm learning how to use.  I actually originally hated technology because I'm a simple man that longs for the simple life and I tend to overcomplicate everything. I started out as a graphic art major because I was told I would make a good financial living as a Graphic Artist.  However, no offense to my many Graphic Arts friends, I actually found it boring and hate the constant upgrading of the computer software.  My freshman year of college, I had learned several programs that I had played around with in high school.  Then came all the pressure to learn it fast and precise.  Well, I hated all the rules and when I took my first ever photography class with my first and favorite professor, Anna Wallace, I was in love at first sight.  I mean with the darkroom and the magic of the chemical and photography, of course!  Also, Anna was a pretty cool person and I do miss our conversations.  I just don't pursue older women (jk).

Well, my final project for my life is to show this community that is in so much pain and turmoil right now the love, compassion, and joy that my family has shown to me.  So, I'm dedicating my Grandfather's famous saying about idle hands being the devil's hands to help rebuild this community to be the beacon of light for the rest of the world in suffering to show that God is still with us and will never leave us.

Through the famous scripture turned song "thy word is a lamp onto my feet and a light onto my path...” I want to use my Grandpa Martin's photographed beaten carpenter's hands in prayer, as they usually were, use my father's poem written and designed graphically for my Grandma by myself, use the code of ethics and the golden rule as our number one rule, and rebuild this dying city back to the proud city she use to be in the days of "little Chicago".  Though, I'd prefer to keep the gangsters and mob out of it this time but make her a proud art and football city once again.

So, Idle Hands Workshops will be named in honor of my late Grandfather Robert Archibald Martin in order to remember and carry out his compassion to his beloved city.  This will be the legacy that he deserves to be remembered by his community that he gave so much for....