I've been a studio painter for many years. Making paintings from the objects in my studio and the various lights that pervade it is an endless and enjoyable puzzle. My paintings are formalist constructions but are not necessarily arranged. The compositions are found as I spend time in the familiar spaces of my studio environment. The basement studio in which all of these paintings have been made is in a working-class neighborhood near the recently closed Bethlehem Steel Plant in Sparrows Point Maryland.

These paintings are of old bottles, archaic household objects, and leftovers from a once vibrant homeowner's workshop. They were here when I moved into this home. Dust obscures these objects as they rest in no planned arrangement. Even when the objects are clearly defined their meanings may be lost to our current generation. In an age when so many answers are at our fingertips, I marvel at what seems to be a disconnection with our recent past. What messages lay inert in these objects? What was the pervasive ideology of those "children of the depression" which once lived in this house and worked in this workshop? How did they treat materials and resources? What did they consider wealth and abundance? As we collectively consider the notion that American progress may not be a given: What can we learn from our not-so-distant past?

↑