Westmoreland Rd, Dallas, Texas

Find the celebration of life in unusual places. The owner of this eating house has given writers permission to bomb his buildings back to back quarterly.

One has to wonder what "quarterly" means to a writer, and if the granting of permission interferes with the act of bombing.

Metroplaces - Dallas 2006 (acrylic on canvas 40" X 30")

Painted over the course of around 8 months, through the desperate heat of summer, this exploration of Dallas came about as I learned to reconcile myself and love Dallas.

If home is where the heart is then, Grapevine should have been an easy home. It has taken a while to attach and acclimatize, and this is home now.

Poets of Destruction 2007 (acrylic and ink on board 4'X4')

Poets of Destruction came out of a fascination with graffiti.
The figure is an amalgamation of a number of graffiti images; the writings in gold and silver collections of poems, writings and lyrics chosen by the Cairns family.

The piece starts with Shelly's "Ozymandias" - I met a traveller from an antique land who said:.. and ends with Charles Bukowski's "Vegas" and this time I kept my mouth shut. And everything in between: Cam chose a piece from Nietzsche's "Thus spoke Zarathustra; Cullen, lyrics from Pink Floyd's "Shine on you crazy diamond"; Erin, Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky".

The figure is a gorgeous diseased loved being in umber, sienna and gold - studded with crystals. The crystals blink and dull as you move around the painting. Also my first venture into modelling paste. What a fun medium!

If I did this piece again, I would not use different colored pens (working with the metallic silver nearly killed me. ) I also developed the Bradley Hand font to lay the writing down, an immense task to change handwriting.

Tom's Diner 2003 (acrylic on canvas 8"X4")

I painted Tom's Diner in 2003, the same year a fire broke out in the kitchen and the owner passed away.

Tom's was a great traditional diner - a greasy spoon where you could get a good meal at a reasonable price. The red checkered table cloths and a blaring TV was what I had always imagined an American diner to be. Tom's was never open on a Sunday, and hasn't been opened any day for some time now.

The diner still stands at the Ledgewood circle on Route 10. I hope someday someone with energy will fall in love with Tom's and reinstate an American classic.

At the time I painted this I was taking watercolor lessons at a local clubhouse, and struggled with the transition to acrylics. The blurring of colors in the water is something I still enjoy today. My fascination with Charles Demuth and Charles Scheeler have also not abated. Maybe in time I'll get them out of my system.