Pittsburgh Artist Registry

“Coming Home”

My work retraces my steps through my hometown, Braddock, Pennsylvania.  I walked from the Westinghouse Bridge to the Rankin Bridge to compose works inspired by Braddock.  More than nostalgia, I feel authentic ownership and responsibility.

By pouring watercolor paints and acrylic inks with pools of water on paper, color is able to settle like rust.  Compositional considerations are made based on my photographs and then painted with oil atop polyvinyl acetate to braid industrial landscape into the meandering image of abstract forms created from pouring.  The result is art work that serves as a serenade or tribute.

I have not always embraced my role as Braddock’s champion.  The poverty-stricken streets of Braddock scared me as a child and threatened me as a young man.  As an adult, I can see the tracks, trails and paths of Braddock that trace back to the immigrants in search of a better life and the sacrifices many made to raise families in America.   I am proud to be Braddock’s son.

The massive, rhythmic machinery of the first steel mill in the United States.  The European inspired architecture of the first Carnegie Library in the United States; The ever vigilant World War I memorial, Winged Victory; These are examples of the landscape that helped develop my sensibility as an artist to paint realistic imagery in conjunction with abstract line and color.  Creating paintings inspired by Braddock is an opportunity to spark dialogue about the birth of modern labor and industry.  The more I learn about history, the greater my awareness, and my appreciation increases for Braddock’s influence on me and my art.