Moving back to Los Angeles after 24 years, I’ve reconnected with friends and family — which is something that I expected would happen. What I didn’t suspect — or what I had forgotten — is that I’d given away paintings to these folks many years ago. Seeing them again, was like seeing old friends. All of them were painted back in the 1980’s or early 1990’s (I think).

A Crucifixion, probably from the early 1980’s.

Again, from the 1980’s — a mixed-media work of “The Art Student’s League” in New York City. I took some painting classes there in the Spring of 1982. The whole place smelled of oil paint. Heaven. I think I made this painting when I was taking undergraduate art courses at L.M.U.

A painting of New York City that I gave to my cousin Tom Henry. Seeing it again was bittersweet. I painted this shortly after my first time living in New York from 1980 to 1982. The second time I lived in New York (2000 to 2002,) I watched those two Towers fall.

My hometown. You see, I can paint without splatters.

Finally, and this is from 1999. Someone in the L.M.U. Jesuit Community asked me do a painting of St. Francis Xavier. (Xavier was the name of the Jesuit residence at the time.) One of the Jesuits who lives there today was kind enough to send me a photograph of it. I remember not really liking it when I made it. I like it a little better now. I was beginning my love affair with drips, dribbles and splatters.