I always wanted to make an image of New York City from space, but in lieu of this, I went to the top of a building I painted many times, Empire State, and went to the top level, stood on a podium holding a column as high as I could, and holding my arm stretched took this picture in which I painted this. One of secrets of achieving the sublime in painting is micro-managing moments for the macro-managed whole, and I tried here to equate that overwhelming feeling of feeling a being a small part of something big, what it feels like to be a barnacle on the boat of one of he greatest cities in our great country as it floats into the future. Loving Manet, Modernism, and the Old Masters, I hope to imbue in my painterly interpretations a synaesthetic aura that transcends my source imagery, to bring about an experience upon him as he is painting and ultimately his viewers, thoughts, feelings, memories, and dream worlds that have an uncanny, sublime evocation. Part of the chapter shown in 2014 of My American Dream at Derek Eller, I wanted ultimately the image just the story of the artist, and his dreams, hopes , and aspirations, but of the American psyche at the beginning of the 21 century, staying afloat and in power despite its struggles, looking forward towards a paradise of equality, understanding, and love.

I’m hoping in that this work breaks down into little Broadway Boogie-woogies in the fractions of each moment, that each window can represent an idea of an individual in the giant world of the entire cosmology, each like the barnacle on the beast of the whale that could be New York City in our turbulent times.