Mother's Day Tribute

My mother. Where do I begin? How can I begin to thank you? You instilled in me a love of life, art, nature, freedom and country. My mother is a great patriot and always has been. She believes in America, Americans, hard work, honesty and never take any BS.

When she was young she was strong, talented, young, fiercely optimistic and very beautiful in a movie star way--and she still is today, even with Multiple Sclerosis. A tussle of long blonde hair, lipstick, usually a cigarette, black mini skirt and boots that is my mother. She raised us alone without any help from anyone. She pulled us through. She made her own dresses and clothes for me and my sister. She knitted us sweaters, hats, mittens and even sewed stuffed toys from scrap pieces of material from patterns she drew herself. She collected soda bottles in the street for the five cent return deposits. It was the only way she could pay for the subway from the Lower East Side of Manhattan all the way out to the World’s Fair in Queens where she worked as a waitress.

She waited on tables for a few years until she got her start in animation. She got her first job hand inking and painting animator’s drawings onto animation cels for television commercials at Stars & Stripes Studios. She went on to work for animation studios like the Academy Award-winning Hubley Studios and others that created some of the most recognized American television icons from Punchy in the Hawaiian Punch™ commercials, to Schoolhouse Rock™ to Beavis and Butthead™. That’s what saved us, cartoons. She often brought work home and stayed up late in her painting room surrounded by careful piles of drying cels for Cheerios™ and Twinky the Kid™ commercials.

Photos by my father. Click to enlarge.

My father is in the top left corner of this photograph.

Brooklyn, 2007

I call it, The Village of the Damned.

Random Shot Rockefeller Center

Boardwalk 116th Street Rockaway Beach, Queens, 1977

In case anyone forgot what the 70's were really like, I thought I'd toss up these scans of pictures that I took of my friends on your typical hot day on the Boardwalk at 116th Street at Rockaway Beach summer 1977. And yes, just like The Ramones sang, we really did used to Hitch a Ride to Rockaway Beach.

Family Photo

This is a scan of an original photograph taken of my mother and sister and I along with two of our childhood friends. We were painting the apartment we had just moved into on the Lower East Side, what is know called the East Village in 1966. I think it was East 9th Street. My sister and I were both in kerchiefs. I am on all the way on the left sitting next to our dog Ketchup.

It is a high-resolution scan, so if you click to enlarge give it a few seconds to load.

Portrait After Leonardo Da Vinci

Landscape

Whatever Happened to the Boy Next Door?

Seascape

Alien Abduction Painting

Today is the 60th anniversary of the UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico.
In honor of the occasion, here is a favorite old painting of mine. Oil on canvas, 3 x 4 feet. I have several other UFO paintings which I will be posting in the future.

Imaginary Landscape

Random Shot Fifth Avenue

Landscape with House

Portrait

Garden View