<<  Previous                Next  >>

I was born in New York City (June 2, 1949) but was raised in Youngstown. I lived in this Ohio steel town until September, 1970 (with the exception of boarding school in New Hope, Pennsylvania). The above portfolio (obviously after the opening image of my self and my father at summer camp at Tanager Lodge ) starts with pictures I made of the family home on Fifth Avenue in Youngstown with my Kodak 126 roll film camera. I loved the endless miles of steel mills and railroads in Youngstown.The night sky seemed to be on fire with the orange glow cast from the furnaces. A special treat was to have my father drive me along the mills at night... the Center Street Bridge, Brier Hill, the Campbell Works, Youngstown Sheet and Tube... the flare from the coke work stacks, the flames from the Bessemers, the ladle train cars with molten steel...

My mid-century grade school diet of activities consisted of model cars, Lionel trains, bicycle riding, backyard baseball, American Flyer sleds, ice skating on the local park pond,TV Westerns, teasing my two sisters, teasing the family dog, mock Civil War battles with Mattel guns, ... and the occasional backyard "hanging".

My father loved airplanes; he was a B-26 pilot and then returned to flying in the1950s. Cessnas, Beechcrafts, Aero Commanders, packed turkey and lettuce on rye, and motion discomfort containers (when we were young and not accustomed to flying)... all this a part of of what some people refer to as the classic period of general aviation (1940 -1965; see Larry Westin's Classic General Aviation photo page at www.westin553.net/ac04.htm).

There were the dislikes... Cold War anxieties, religious school, homework left until Sunday, the last day of Christmas vacation, and my endless grade school detentions.

I loved history. I lived with three great myths: that America's military missions were always noble, that the main cause of the Civil War was the issue of state's rights, and that few people were living in Palestine before 1948. For many of my generation the early 60s were a time of optimism...that soon changed.

There was secondary school at the Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania. One late winter afternoon (1964) in the small art library I discovered Charles Burchfield (American visionary landscape artist; 1893 - 1967). I also looked much at Charles Addam's cartoon illustrations... it was the background settings that most interested me.

There was a period of treatment for chronic depression from the fall of 1967 to the spring of 1972 with three hospitalizations: March ,1970 (Mt. Sinai in Cleveland, Ohio); August,1970 (Mt. Sinai in Cleveland, Ohio); and September 1970 to February, 1972 (Austin Riggs, Stockbridge, Massachusetts). At Austin Riggs, in the fall of 1971, I started working with photography: earlier that year I received a 35mm Canon FTb as a gift from a girlfriend.

I left Austin Riggs shortly after my parent's plane accident in December, 1971; I stayed in western Massachusetts until the early summer when I moved to Columbus, Ohio. I studied photography at Ohio State. I also enjoyed handguns... lots of guns and time at gun ranges.

A very close friend ( I knew her from kindergarten in Youngstown ) killed herself in 1973.

I moved to New Orleans in the spring of 1981 with my three cats. I met my wife there. I traveled to Northern Ireland (1982, 1984), Beirut, Lebanon (1982), and Ethiopia (1984). I started to paint and draw at The New Orleans Academy of Fine Art; it was one of the better decisions I made.

In 1987 another close friend shot himself to death ( also from early Youngstown grade school days).

In the spring of 1988 I moved to Connecticut. I went back to school to finish the degree program I started decades earlier at Ohio State. It took decades to overcome anxieties about school... I found it easier to be in war zones with my camera. I continue to make images; photography, painting and drawing. Youngstown is gone...after my parent's accident the family home was sold, friends moved away, friends died, friends killed themselves, and... the steel mills were closed and demolished.