Some more old stuff

Upside-down Tricycle (1992), oil on canvas, 30x30in.

Tireswing (1992), oil on canvas, 40x40in.

Lawn chairs and backstoop (1992), oil on canvas, 50x50in.

Porch (1992), oil on canvas, 60x36in.

Way (1993), oil on canvas, @32x42in.

Tireswing, Porch, and Way were all in my thesis show. For more about my days at Pratt, what I was thinking and doing, see the previous post. Tireswing is now in a private collection in Brooklyn. My mother always said the little boy reminded her of one of my brothers.

Take me back

Four Houses, 1992-3, oil on canvas, @40x60in.

Recently had some old slides scanned to digital and, although they are not always the best quality, I'll be posting some of them here, and you can also see them in my picasa albums, link to the right. This splashy thing was a part of my MFA Thesis exhibition at Pratt Institute in the spring of 1993, and is now tucked away in a storage locker on Flatbush a few blocks from my studio. Very much in thrall to the Bay Area Figurative painters of the 50's and 60's back then, especially Richard Diebenkorn, by far the best of the lot. And also starting to come more and more under the influences of de Kooning and Matisse, but more on that later. I was learning to paint, obviously, and I was in love with the splash and the sturm, etc. I was, what, 24 or 25 when I was painting this one. My god, that's young.


Four Houses is based on a photo of a row of houses in the neighborhood where I grew up in Toledo, viewed from Highland Park, looking across South Avenue. I was big into exploring images from childhood back then, toys and houses and fields. More to come.