United States

These were my first offerings, in 1991, after Hiiroko and I moved from Brooklyn out here to the edge of the world, South Jersey, by the Delaware Bay. Without a source for scoring weed, I was drinking a lot, asking myself what had I been thinking (concerning the move), and maybe we made a big mistake. This unsteadiness lasted seven years. Thirty five years later and I’ve become acclimated. About the work, one inspiration was my 1964 set of World Book Encyclopedias, a true treasure trove, containing fantastic pictures, including many colorful maps. There’s a lot of Sinatra and Ava Gardner here (and Liz Taylor) so I must have had some special edition calendars or magazines, along with a few biker and sumo rags, a book of Chinese posters, Famous Monsters, National Geographic, a book of tabloid photos, and whatnot. I never got around to all the states, unfinished projects being my modus operandi back then, but I remember being pretty excited about what I had done. The World Books would serve me well for another ten years, until after the turn of the century, when, with accumulating water damage and mold, they looked like props from The Evil Dead and had to be trashed.