Tongo Gemina and Those Petals of Love: Unobstructed Abstracts

Michael Penn, Fashion Designer, singer, writer. Reared in Boston, he apprenticed under German designers Gottfried Schmidt and Peter Rank. He opened an Haute Couture boutique in Frankfurt under the etiquette C.Gordon, which showed its line in world fashion capitols such as New York, London, Tokyo, Munich, and Barcelona, to critical acclaim. He has performed in over 70 cities in Europe with his group, Chess. He received an award from the World Poets Resource Center for his 27 published works including chap book Tongo Gemina and Those Petals of Love. He studied photography in Thailand, and is preparing a tour-guide, storyteller format, from an African-American perspective. Michael is a poet and journals daily, hoping one day to publish them under the title All That and Nothing, but That's Not What James Baldwin Would Say. Michael idolized author James Baldwin. Michael loves photography and collected personal photos of Fenway Park and the city of Boston and many other tourist cities. As an artist, Michael's first group exhibit was with artist Paul Goodnight and the late Therese India Young, a great spiritual artist, whom Michael deeply admired. They taught him to "throw it all out and let it go." For over 20 years, he has been creating abstract works and scribbling in his journals, still taking art lessons; but for the most part, he continues to throw it all out and just paint or draws abstracts. He's currently painting two works for a gallery in Stuart, Florida.Michael is a Buddhist by way of life and a Christian from religion with smorgasbord approach to all that is spiritual. A decade ago, he accomplished a four-week photographic study-tour of Thailand and prepared a guided tour-storyteller format-from an African-American perspective of Thailand. He loves temples and sacred places. Since his near-death experience, he believes his soul was saved in the thousand-year-old church in Trondheim, Norway. Michael now lives both in Florida and in Boston.