THE DAY AFTER
The Day After was a made for TV movie from the 80's, that depicted life
after a nuclear attack. The story itself was unmemorable, but I have
never forgotten those images of the world coming to an end. Houses swept away like dust. Rampaging rivers of fire. People disappearing in red flashes. All gone in an instant.

Life is funny in that way. The biggest things happen in a flash. You can
spend a lifetime building a house but lose it all in a moment. One minute you are going about your routine and in the next life is never the same again.

We are told that 911 was the single most defining moment in American
history, if not world history. We hear it so often, it now seems like a
slogan. You find yourself repeating it though you don’t know what it means. Like most Americans, my experience of 911 was as an image on a television screen. I did not know anyone who died in New York, DC or on United 93. I know one person who was sent to Afghanistan or Iraq and that was the brother of a childhood friend who I last saw in first grade. I visited Ground Zero three years after; as a tourist. 911, Iraq and the War on Terror is a soap opera that I follow on talk radio and on the Sunday morning news shows.

To me, 911 is a spectre, a ghost; a fantasy world. If I had never turned
on a TV, listened to a radio or picked up a newspaper, it might as well
have never happened. Yet as I look at my art, my sketchbooks, and my
journals over the last 5-6 years there is no doubt that it has had an
impact on my outlook, my perceptions, beliefs about people, hopes,
dreams and imagination.

This is NOT 911 artwork. It is not about what happened on that day. It
is not about taking sides or identifying who is good and who is evil. It
is not about commentary or pushing an agenda. It is about being lost and
and trying to find your way. It is about coming to terms with past
burdens while also trying to build a new life.

My day job is all about producing results; it’s about answers and
solutions; it’s about the polished package. There is no room for flaws,
uncertainty, mystery or open-endedness. My art exists in this space. It
lives in fragments, in various media, in fleeting thoughts, and tangled
threads. It is a byproduct of a messy process. Through the simple act of
collecting these pieces and arranging them to be seen in one space and
one moment, my intention is to paint a portrait of this process. But the
truth is my art doesn’t always make sense to me. I enjoy the mystery ;
things that free my mind to ask questions, wonder, contemplate and
perhaps even find peaceful resolution.

It is said that revelation is the act of seeing what is already there.
Like disaster, it too happens in an instant and can change your life
forever.

It is The Day After and it is time to move on.