Who knew? Not my 9 year old father when he boarded a ship in the Bay of Naples, Italy in 1914, that over 100 yrs later his daughter would hang a monumental painting of him in the very building he sailed past to land on Ellis Island.

Maybe it is because I am an only child.

Maybe it is because I had good parents or,

Maybe it is because I had a blessed working class childhood,

that when a professor at Parsons said, paint what has meaning for you, I immediately thought of the tiny sepia photos that transfixed me as a child. I painted my first serious painting from those photos of me and my parents and never looked back.

In this exhibit, each painting looks as if it is in the spot it was supposed to be to be in. My father in a Mantegna landscape, iconic images of movies I saw with them, Ellis Island across the Bay, The Statue Of Liberty and my paintings in the last waterfront in New York located in Red Hook with its outlaw history, all contribute to a spiritual quality.

Who knew?

Once Upon A Time.