“I thought it was time to show you a page from one of my Moleskine. Two years ago I told you about the Moleskine I use to bring with me when I’m travelling. I like the quality of the paper, and it’s small enough to fit into a pocket. When I draw on a Moleskine, it’s a totally different kind of inspiration I have. I can be in a plane, in a hotel, in a cafe, waiting for someone or something, or just letting time pass. Each drawing represents a special moment, it only takes a few minutes to draw, it’s like ‘instant drawing’. Over the past year, I received many emails from regular readers of this blog, asking me when I was going to show them some drawings from my so-called Moleskine, quoting me back in 2008 when I wrote in My Moleskine, Cary Grant, some Asti Spumante and a Goldorus: ‘… But I didn’t spend all days writing, I also drew on my Moleskine, I’ll show you some pages some day’. This day has come, eventually…”

More about the drawings on Moleskine on Max Dana’s Blog:
 Sama Sun and tiny ‘Sama fresco’ drawing from my Moleskine
 My Moleskine, Cary Grant, some Asti Spumante and a Goldorus

Max Dana launched the ’60 Signers for the 60th Anniversary Initiative’ on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to support the Every Human Has Rights Campaign initiated by The Elders. Six months later, the initiative has been fulfilled and it contributed to bring awareness on Human Rights.

“Last November, I launched the ‘60 Signers for the 60th Anniversary Initiative’ on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to support the Every Human Has Rights Campaign initiated by The Elders. As you may have easily noticed, the landmark U.N. document is still not fully respected around the world. This Declaration sets basic minimum international standards for the protection of the rights and freedoms of the individual and I thought this 60th anniversary was the perfect occasion to ‘do something’. My humble contribution consisted in creating an artwork and invite 60 members of various organizations and personalities involved into human rights to sign the art work, as well as ‘ordinary’ people taking action toward the goals of the Universal Declaration [...] I’m more used to meet with ’simple people’ working for organizations than with ‘upper circles’ but even if some meetings were hard to get, everyone I met was enthusiastic, curious and most of all, concerned about the initiative…“

More about the Initiative on Max Dana’s Blog:
 60 Signers for the 60th Anniversary Initiative fulfilled!
 Every Human Has Rights: 60 Signers for the 60th Anniversary

And Cary Grant, Jacques Tati, Lino Ventura, Mae West, Marlène Dietrich, Sidney Poitier, Simone Signoret… And last but not least, Romy Schneider. Each portrait captures the essence of the samazed personality, through the glance of the World of Sama…

“The choices were tough to make but I finally got a list of my 16 favorite Movie Stars, and I gave you a hint about four of them in the title of this post. On my top list, and it comes as no surprise to you I guess, is Cary Grant. I already samazed him a long time ago but I did a new portrait especially for the series. Elegance, class, charm, charism… I’m a bit nostalgic of this kind of actors, I must admit. On the opposite, the name of Angelina Jolie may come as a surprise but I think she’s a very good actress (as recently seen in Changeling) and she’s also very glamorous [...] I chose an Austrian-born German actress who also held French citizenship: the great Romy Schneider. This May is the 27th anniversary of her death, so I thought it would make sense to publish her portrait. She was one of the most beautiful women in the world (and still is to me) and one of the greatest actresses of all time (yes, I mean it)…“

More about the Movie Stars Series on Max Dana’s Blog:
 Cary Grant, Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, Marlene Dietrich… Samazed!
 Romy Schneider, an everlasting star has been ‘Samazed’

This is the perfect moment for Max Dana to take photos and capture this very strange feeling: being alone on the beach, with only the sound of the waves wetting the sand… That is the exact moment when ‘Trouville Plage’ has been samazed!

“Lately I came to Trouville sur Mer (Calvados, France), a beautiful french town, a bridge away from Deauville, a city mostly known for its casino, the beach where the great movie from Claude Lelouch: A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme, 1966) was filmed and for the Deauville American Festival (in september). Trouville and Deauville are separated by a bridge but sometimes it looks like there is a world between both cities. One is believed to be hype and the other one more typical; I like both cities even if Trouville is my favorite place and this is the reason why I came in town recently. It was in the middle of the week, off-season and rainy but it was exactly what I was looking for. Nobody was on the beach, no sign of life on the ‘planches‘, no sun and it was windy; I loved it…“

More about Trouville (‘Plage’ / Beach) Photos Series on Max Dana’s Blog:
Trouville has been samazed!

Two years later, during the Obama Campaign in 2008, this portrait has been spontanously used by some Obama supporters. Although the artist didn’t make this portrait on purpose, it was considered like an endorsement to the Obama campaign by a group of French Obama supporters.

“I’m not American as you may have already noticed without any difficulty but a few months ago (back in september) I started to work on my new Samazed Series and my first work was about JFK, with no apparent reason besides the fact his assassination is still in everyone’s memory (well, at least mine). Then I worked on other projects and in october An Inconvenient Truth was released in Europe, Al Gore was almost on every channel over here. I guess this is the reason why I decided to include him into the Samazed Series; on this work, he appears like a little genius (actually his head only) coming out of a magic lamp [...] Then came the Clintons, Hillary and Bill. First Hillary supported her husband and he got the White House, now, his turn. Play King (Bill) or Queen (Hillary) and you’ll get a samazed Clinton pair. And what about Barack Obama? He could be the new face of America…“

More about the U.S Presidents Series on Max Dana’s Blog:
 JFK, Gore, Clinton and Obama into the Sama Family