"SHOW ME YOUR BLUESIDE"
Visual Blues Man And 'Slideshow Poet' In Athens Tuesday

Andy Friedman counts himself a man of the blues. He identifies with its melancholy tones, its ability to craft moods and tell stories and paint vivid portraits of the American landscape.

"I've got a lot of friends who are musicians, who do country blues music, and we're all coming from that same spiritual place," Friedman says. "[From them] I've learned how to make something big from whatever you've got. All you need is to know what you're feeling."

But Friedman isn't a musician, at least not in the traditional form.

The tales of his life aren't played in the wail of a guitar or harmonica's slur but through the lens of his Polaroid camera and the grainy stroke of his pencil.

Even so, he is a blues man.

Friedman's words and images elicit stories of the often bleak portions of the American landscape ‹ empty parking lots, dreary winter roads and horizons dotted with clouds are all included in his new collection of photographs, "Future Blues."

"A lot of the pictures [in 'Future Blues'] were taken on the way home or (leaving) home," he says. "I had a day job and didn't have enough time to just stay in my house working on paintings. A lot of the pictures were taken on the way to work."

But Friedman hopes to do more than simply share his photographs and drawings with audiences; he wants the visual arts to elicit the emotions from spectators as performed music does.

With a slide projector as his only instrument, Friedman tours the U.S. "performing" his art, reciting improvised monologues and fragmented lyrics as spectator view the portraits and landscapes about the stage.

It's a performance that has garnered him the nickname of "slideshow poet."

"The way one performs is bound to be different every night," he says. "The musician can use the same lyrics every night, but they could be sung in a different way."

"I've become the person and artist that I am because of all the other artists I've witnessed along the way, the ones who open up to me on record and on stage," he says. "The experience is valuable, and I hope to contribute to that chain. I'll throw my spark and hopefully put it into someone else."