About the Paintings

One night when I was very young, I passed by an abandoned factory in my home town in Illinois.  In the windows of this factory, I felt a presence. Maybe it was the spirits of the workers that labored there day after day. Maybe it was spirit of the factory itself. It was very moving and a bit haunting.

The places I travel to are not the typical vacation spots; they are in rural areas, often at night while looking for light. These places become a stage and their objects become the characters. Once bustling towns now house abandoned dreams. Vending machines, gas pumps, street lights, phone booths and doors now offer services to the spirits of our past.  

Later in my life, while photographing an old steam engine in North Carolina, an older man said to me, " It is hard to imagine that an object so saturated with memories and power, does not contain a spirit itself."  I think some people find it hard to attach a personality or a feeling with an inanimate object. For others, the feelings are very real.  These objects seem to take on personalities and watch us. When I feel the space or an object beginning to watch me, then I know I have a great subject to paint.

It is the embodiment of the memories and energy that is captured in these places and things.  I see in them a haunting abandonment that calls out for the days when they were useful and needed. I try to communicate this in my paintings. I paint these places in hopes that others may begin to understand and see these places for themselves.