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Since childhood I have been both an escapist and artist. I've always needed to be outside and pursue outdoor experiences with intensity. I grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens which was great. To reach the ocean I biked to Rockaway Beach. To reach "nature" I biked to Manhattan and from Manhattan to New Jersey to the Palisades Interstate Park. Every weekend I rode to Central Park over the 59th Street Bridge on the outer roadway along with cars, looped around and around and back. This part of could go on and on but it does to relate to my art which is why I've included it - escapism.
My paintings, not intentionally, but now I do know, is about seeing things outside while being outside, from memories of childhood vacations and places passed fast while driving. As a student at Queens College of the City of New York, which was a commuter school, I worked at the Wesley House (now Summer Camp Hotel) in Oak Bluffs in Martha's Vineyard. Working there was significant cultural departure from my world and also provided an away college experience that I really wanted. At that time everyone, and I mean everyone was a preppy except me and they thought I was cool and I thought they were cool. Working in that hotel was marvelous because it was before air-conditioners were installed and the rooms still had transoms above the doors, fire buckets in the hallways and coiled ropes to repel from windows in case of fires. Every change in the air was felt. A north wind clarified everything, the horizon, the clanging boat halyards in the harbor below, more blue and white caps. Humidity brought haloed lights in the night, dispelled sights and softened all except things right up close. I reveled in it all and to capture it I painted it and continue to paint it.
My art is about emotional connection to objects. No insult to still life painters and I like some of their stuff a lot, but to paint a flower would be numbing. If I connect and want to hold and present what I love. I like concrete a lot. I like the way it ages and the unprentiousness of it. I like objects, architecture, signage or seawalls that reinforce a sense of place because it is about that place that I am interested in. So there you have it for now. Love, intensity, connection, and engagement.
If someone comes up to me and says they feel what I've painted then I know I've done my job.
Thank you.