UNTITLED - 1949 - 9" X 12" - Water color. Every artist has to start somewhere. This water color is all that remains of that beginning. The piece is dated 1949, which would make me all of twelve years of age.

 CRUCIFIXION - 1957 - 32" X 18" - Oil on wood. I was in my beginning year as an art student when this work was painted. As with most art students, art supplies were hard to come by. In my dormitory room there was an old dresser . One of the drawer bottoms had fallen out. As I was always looking for something to paint on, I used the wooden drawer bottom.

BLUE CLOWN - 1958 - 24" X 36" - Oil on canvas.  I remember giving this painting the nickname, "Sad Clown." Perhaps a self portrait. The clown [my self] seems to be resting on the edge of a stage, peering and reflecting at the action taking place before him. Not participating. I recall, at the time, being a bit embarrassed by this work . I felt it was very self-revealing.

PLATE 4

 UNTITLED - 1961 - 32" X 26"

I was exploring the craft of making pictures, many times changing from representational images to abstract.

APPARITION - 1961 - 32" X 26"

  UNTITLED - 1961 - 24" X 32"

Other works were my impressions of the trip through the mountains on the way to Seattle.

I was also combining those images with images of the East Coast. Tidal marshes, the Chesapeake Bay and trees would replace the vertical masts of the fishing boats. However, the one predominant element of all the paintings completed that summer was the horizon line.

BEACH SHACKS - 1963 - 24" X 18" - Oil on canvas. I feel this is a significant piece.  It was a first, with the high horizon line and minimal composition.  As a child, on many levels, I was accustomed to loneliness. Visually, what I was seeing translated to deep emotions.  I  saw what, I as a child  had felt.  I found, in the natural world, a human emotion.  In the years to come, this emotion would translate into images of desolation, empty space divided by a single horizontal line.