RED HOOK TEMPTER

October 16, 2011.  I am on my way to the closing of the BWAC Fall Show.  I take my favorite bus ride and I see this portrait as I ride by.  I know I have to go back.  I want to liberate you from this fence.  But I have no tools, and not the will to do this thing, to remove you from your designated place.  Will you be there later?  How will your form weather the coming frost, the winter, this season's sun?  This is your place, you will manage as best you can, as you were intended to do by whomever made you.  I will look for you again.  And in the darkness I will want to take you with me.

WALKER FACE

February 8, 2011. I finished an early and strenuous day, filled with faces and forms and questions, and then passed this portrait. I imagine that the artist saw this gray shape, and like a sculptor, could see how to liberate the form within. Did she look at it and think that it was a shame the rest of us couldn't see it, or did she think that the face was longing to become visible? It was there and was brought out to life.

SUBWAY PORTRAIT

June 13, 2010. Ah, now here's a face, a scowl, an unhappy outlook on the adventure that awaits anyone entering the subway system in NYC. The train can carry you to faraway places, new cultures, or work. It can take you to the IKEA ferry to visit Red Hook for the BWAC art exhibit. This face doesn't know that. He is rendered in light and darkness - but the darkness seems to control his face, force its outlook, weigh on what could be an exuberant day.

THE BARON

January 31, 2010. CPW at 95th. Look at that face. Baron von Fancy. A round pink angel with diamond blue eyes. It was blistering cold today, yet the Baron raises his eyes and sings to heaven. How carefully this piece was selected for its site, to subvert the warnings that were stamped into the door that now maybe opens a portal to a world created by the Baron. Be careful. Yes, he has a website.

Sharif on Park Place

September 10, 2009. I see faces. Everyday, from the time I wake up, until I go to bed, I am surrounded by faces of infinite variety and form. I like them. I have portraits in my home, I watch faces in profile and frontal on the subway and at my job. I see noses, eyes, ears and mouths. Every working day I see this face, Sharif, and he sells me coffee and a bagel. If I don’t come to his cart, he asks me where I’ve been. He is concerned that I go to work and that I arrive on time. He knows my routine, so if it is too close to 9, I’ve been out walking. If it is close to 8, someone called in sick and I am coming in to open the office. And I know his routine – and he knows it. I’d miss him if he wasn’t there.