Ohio

Ohio turnpike (2002), oil on canvas, 40x48

I grew up on the south side of Toledo, Ohio. It was a good place to grow up, and it's a great place to take my son a few times a year, to see his cousins, aunts and uncles and grandmother. We're pretty spread out but we all make the effort to get together when we can.

Homecoming (2000), oil on canvas, 72x42in.

I loved playing football.

Prom (2003), oil on canvas, 54x60

Snowscape (2004), pastel, 22x30in.

The view of the alley across from my parents' house. I think we must have moved into that house when I was in about second or third grade. My mother still lives there.

Doorway (2006), oil on canvas, 26x36in.

I think a lot of the black and white work I do, with imagery from old movies, must have something to do with watching movies as a kid, sometimes late at night, maybe in the basement. I like the weird blue glow that comes off the screen when you watch an old black and white movie late at night. I remember seeing that blue glow in the windows of other houses at night. I liked monster movies and I loved Jimmy Cagney movies. If a Cagney movie were on late at night, my mother would let me go to bed early, then she'd wake me up in the middle of the night so I could watch it. A different world before dvd's and videocassettes. During PBS pledge drives, they often played the earliest Hitchcock films that my mother loves, and I remember staying up with her to see The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, or the original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. The image above comes from a movie nowhere near as distinguished as those.