Redtree Times

  This past week I mentioned a series of paintings that I had finished in the mid 90’s called Exiles.  This series was the basis for my first solo show and remains a very prominent and personal group of work for me.  I had started showing my work publicly for the first time at the West End Gallery in Corning in February.  It was a huge first step for me.  A few months later, my mom, who lived in Florida, was diagnosed with lung cancer.  

This, in itself, was not unexpected. She had been a smoker since she 13 or 14 years old, often smoking 2-3 packs a day.  She smoked Camels.  No filters here.  Many of my childhood memories are tinged with white clouds of cigarette smoke, something that seems horrible and unthinkable now but those were different times with different sensibilities.  

Her struggle with her cancer was fairly short and tortuous, lasting about five months.  Her cancer had moved into her lymph system and became systemic, invading her breasts and bones.  It ended in early November of 1995.  She was 63 years old.

The feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that came from this were manifested in the faces I began to paint.  They mirrored the extreme pain we watched her endure and could do nothing to alleviate.  They were the only way that I could express the myriad feelings of that time and to this day fill me with emotion.

That is, in short, how this series came about and why I still show the work on my website.  My work has evolved over the years but  this work remains perhaps the closest to me.