The Korean Irishman

At some point in my life I became Korean. I'm not sure how it happened. I certainly didn't plan it. The fact that I work at a Korean advertising agency that does the ads for Samsung which is the biggest company in Korea and that I married a Korean girl are coincidental. Hard to believe but true. I now have Korean nieces and nephews, Korean mother-in-law, grandmother, co-workers and friends. They are embedded in every aspect of my life. On my recent trip to Korea, I was doing a big photo shoot. It took over two weeks. There were plenty of local Koreans who were hired to work on the job. Word quickly spread like wildfire. Kane has a Korean wife. I could tell that they were treating me differently. They made me feel special. I felt I was always being looked at with a kind of admiration. Hell, I could get used to this. One guy asked if I could speak Korean. I said, "not a word." He was shocked and I could tell a little disappointed. It made me feel a little disappointed in myself. I'm going to try and amend that. I felt very comfortable and at home this time in Seoul. Actually I should feel at home. After all I am Korean.

Cheese

The other day Yun and I were in Washington Square Park in Manhattan with a friend. Our friend asked a complete stranger if he would take a photo of the three of us together. Of course the stranger obliged. It's a scene we've all seen played out a million times. Being in advertising, I hang with a lot of big name photographers. Several times I've been on the street and sure enough someone will ask if one of us can take their photo. Of course the photographer always does it, not me. We never tell the person, "oh by the way, you've just been photographed by one of the world's best photographers." I've often wondered how many times someone asked Irving Penn or Richard Avedon if they could take a photo of them with the empire state building behind them. They would never know that Annie Leibovitz just shot them in front of some dumb fountain. Also I wonder would the photo look the same as a dumb photo I would take in the same situation or would they get home and look through their photos and suddenly realize that one shot was far greater than all the rest. "Wow, look at this one shot. It's the one that strange woman with the big nose took of us in front of that fountain. It's so amazing. Golly Gee, I wonder who she was?"
Somehow I don't think that would be the case. I'm sure it would look just slightly better than the photo I would take. Anyway these are the kinds of thoughts I have in my head as I walk around the city.

Tommy Kane Draws Lebanon

I promised I would do a film of my trip to Lebanon and here it is. It is the best one I've done so far. The fact that Lebanon is so amazing helped the texture of this video. Also I didn't do the music for this one either. I found some great Lebanese music online and chose certain pieces to give the film a haunting quality. Hope you like how it turned out. I'm very pleased with how it came out.

Midwest

Midwest airlines magazine did an article about the website Urban Sketchers and I am apart of it. They ran my drawing of Katz's deli. I have some wacky quote about what it's like to draw in New York City. Looks pretty good.

Show And Tell

Someone from Gigya came to my office to give a presentation. I sat through the presentation and I still don't know what they do. The woman doing the presenting was a good figure drawing model. She had no clue I was drawing her. She probably thought I was paying the most attention. I'm sure she was under the impression that I was furiously writing notes on everything she was saying. One guy from my office knew what I was up to because he asked to see the drawing after the presentation. It gave me something to do to kill the hour.

The Empire State

I had to do a photo shoot with Craig Cutler. His studio is located on 32nd street. I stepped out of the subway and looked up. I was directly underneath the Empire State Building. It was a very cool angle. At night when I was finished working, I passed the same spot. The building was lit up multicolored. Someone on the job the next day said they did it in honor of the Grateful Dead. Some of the remaining members were playing the Beacon theater. The Empire State Building was tie dyed. I bought this new iphone app. It's called type drawing. I sat under the Empire State Building and used it to draw. The app is not so easy but here are my attempts. You can type in a few words and as you draw a line with your finger it spells out what you wrote. It allows you to change typefaces and line thickness. This is the best I could do with it.