Collection of 25 drawings from a series of 130. The Spiral Worm Drawings were shown at the Dorsky Gallery, SoHo, NYC, 2001. They are the first series of drawings I created that are entirely devoid of words. These works are made using frozen Blood Worms, a commercially available tropical fish food. I allow the worms to defrost on manila paper, then manipulate them with a brush to form spirals and patterns, resembling waves or currents of water. The dark lines in the drawings are the actual worms, which, once dry, adhere to the paper. The reddish hue comes from their blood. My decision to use Blood Worms as a medium was inspired by Dr. Sydney Brenner’s pioneering work in molecular biology. Brenner used similar worms to help decode the human genome. The worms serve as a metaphor for humanity’s psychological and physical struggle to survive in an ever-changing and often hostile environment. Blood Worms are one of the few species that have adapted to thrive in places nearly void of all oxygen. Beyond their association with water, these drawings also reference the cosmos and evolutionary travel.

Acrylic paint on manila paper, verso always presented. These drawings reflect the horizontal lines of my Inside Out Burlap Bag Paintings, which are inspired by the Tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl.

Dear Lawrence Drawings 2019-2022, 65 Drawings In honor and in memory of Lawrence Carroll, my mentor, who guided me and took me under his wing when I was just starting out in the late eighties. These works are deeply connected to themes of teaching, time, passing the torch of creativity, earth, water, and flora—elements central to Lawrence's own art. Flowers often appeared in his paintings, some of which, recently exhibited, resembled growing plants or "Growing Paintings." I worked on these drawings exclusively in my upstate New York studio, the same place where Lawrence moved to before he passed. These are the flowers he would have seen, spanning the seasons. There are sixty-five drawings in total, one for each year of his giving life. Each drawing is coated with wax, the medium Lawrence always used. The brown color on the paper comes from clay residue left by my students during their pottery assignments in my classroom. The paper was used to protect desks, which I collected at the end of each class. Some of the papers were so beautiful that I began saving them without knowing what I would eventually do with them. They sat stored away in a drawer for years, only to emerge after Lawrence passed. It felt right to use the earthy residue paper, touched by my students and is symbolic of the cycle of learning, growth, and legacy. 

"Left (Behind) Student Work" was born during the first Trump administration, in response to the farce of the DeVos nomination. This series emerged from my classroom, where the neglect of public education and the future of our children were becoming more and more evident. The paintings in this collection were left behind by my high school students. They did not take their paintings home and were eventually re-stretched for next year's class. While removing these old canvases from their stretcher bars, I found myself unexpectedly drawn to their backs. Both visually and sentimentally, I connected with the marks and memories of instruction they held. The physical qualities of the canvas, along with the residue of past lessons, began to reflect something more than just student work and became a tangible record of shared experiences. This inspired me to sew the old painted canvases together, with the verso facing outward. The pieces are grouped and organized by themes reflecting teaching strategies, like "Think-Pair-Share," "Collaborative Learning," and "Scaffolding." Through this process, the work explores the layered relationship between education, memory, and the often-overlooked students left behind in the system. 

This is my first meaningful body of work, marking the beginning of my language and journey of painting." I made about fifty of them 1988 - 1989, displayed here are a set of nine.