



Coffee Bar by Val’s Bakery
Drive-Thru
5707 Bigger Road,
Kettering OH 45440
Mon 7am to 6pm
Tues – Sat 7am to 3pm
Pastries come fresh from the bakery every:
Wednesday – Fri 7am to sold out
Saturday 9am to sold out
In retirement Bill Franz bought a camera, learned how to use it, and became a volunteer photographer. He has done photo projects for the Humane Society of Greater Dayton and for almost two dozen other local organizations.
In 2013 Bill started a project of his own – photographing people at work. Since then he has photographed hundreds of workers, from butchers and bakers and candy makers to clowns and sculptors and fire eaters. The photos have appeared in solo and group art exhibitions and also in less traditional venues such as hospitals, retail stores, nature centers and breweries. They have been seen by hundreds of thousands of people. Profits from photo sales go to Dayton area nonprofits.
By Bill Franz
Drive-Thru
5707 Bigger Road,
Kettering OH 45440
Mon 7am to 6pm
Tues – Sat 7am to 3pm
Pastries come fresh from the bakery every:
Wednesday – Fri 7am to sold out
Saturday 9am to sold out
By Bill Franz
By Bill Franz
By Bill Franz
By Bill Franz
Conversation with Deepika Singh, co-owner (with her husband Jay) of Gulzar’s Indian Cuisine (across the street from the Dayton Dragons at 217 N. Patterson Blvd).
By Bill Franz
By Bill Franz
Mateo is not a criminal
As I worked on this and the other pieces in this series I wondered if any gallery would want to exhibit them. This work is a direct criticism of the president, and he’s doing his best to make people afraid to criticize him.
In his first 100 days in power the president has gone after everyone who’s ever made him mad. When he doesn’t attack people or institutions directly he mentions something online and his most rabid fans do his dirty work. When judges rule against him, for example, they and their families get hundreds of threatening emails and phone calls.
In this political atmosphere many people and institutions are trying to avoid any confrontation with the administration. That’s a common reaction to a bully – keep your head down and hope he doesn’t notice you. Even if the bully targets you the temptation is not to complain because he could always make it worse.
That’s why I wasn’t sure if this work would be exhibited. But I applied to ArtPrize anyway. That’s a huge art competition and festival held in Grand Rapids annually. This year it will run from September 18 to October 4. Over 800,000 people come to ArtPrize each year.
Within days of applying I got an email from one of the 149 participating venues inviting me to exhibit. Last weekend I drove to Grand Rapids to make sure that the owner of the business where I’d been invited to exhibit was fully on board with work that was political. He told me he didn’t see my art as political, and he himself never gets involved in politics. He sees what is being done to these children and their parents as a human rights issue. To him my work was about human rights, not politics.
So the work will be seen in Michigan this fall. Now I need to finish the work, and find more places where someone likes the art and is not worried about irritating the president and his most rabid fans.
By Bill Franz
By Bill Franz
By Bill Franz
Sun – Fri 10am – 5pm
closed Saturday
By Bill Franz
Dayton Ohio Habitat for Humanity ReStore
115 W Riverview Ave.
Dayton, Ohio 45405
Hours of Operation
Tuesday through Saturday
OPEN. 9:00 a.m.- Noon &
1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
The Dayton ReStore is closed Noon- 1:00 p.m. daily for lunch
By Bill Franz
By Bill Franz
Conversation with Chef Cece of The Burger Bistro, one of the four restaurants at The Silos (801 East First). I asked Chef Cece about her food background.
By Bill Franz
This series was inspired by words – President Trump’s lies about the Haitian immigrants in Springfield. I’ve decided that I should try to include words in the images I’m creating. I should use my words to combat those of the president.
Lies and slander are part of the president’s schtick, the comedic style he uses to entertain his followers. Wikipedia lists more than 80 of his derogatory nicknames, like calling his predecessor “Crooked Joe.” The president uses those nicknames to demean other powerful people. It’s different when his slurs are directed at the most vulnerable.
When powerful people direct hate speech against the vulnerable I hear echoes of some of history’s worst events. Calling Haitians criminals who eat people’s dogs and cats makes me think of the Tutsis who were called cockroaches before the killings in Rwanda, or the Jews who were called vermin before their German citizenship was stripped away. Words aimed at dehumanizing the vulnerable can be a first step towards abuse. When we hear those words we need to shout them down.
Miguel’s parents brought him here to escape the violence in his native country. He has no documentation, so the president labels him a criminal. We cannot let that label stand. It can be used to justify abuses, claiming they were acceptable because they were directed only against criminals.
If the president wants to label some people as criminals, we should insist that he use the word accurately. A criminal is a person who has been found guilty in a court of law of committing a crime. The president is a criminal. Miguel is not.
By Bill Franz
By Bill Franz