The Route 66 Series

For the past several years I have been exploring the remaining sections of old Route 66 and creating a body of work in a variety of media. Two major influences om my pictoral work have been the recent Norman Rockwell retrospective and the Jasper John drawings I saw in Houston.
The stories and mythology surrounding “The Mother Road” point up some interesting traits of mid 20th century American society. The completion of the highway in 1926 marked the end on the frontier. No longer was the journey west a dangerous experience, but instead for the first time, anyone with enough wealth to get a dependable car could drive all the way from New York to California on paved highway. Unlike taking the railroad, the individual was not at the mercy of restricted timetables and predetermined stops. This marked a profound change in the American psyche - if life was not satisfying where one was at, just load up the car and head for the Shangri-la of California, guided by the often extravagant signs and architecture that sprung up along the road. The “flying deltas”, bright colors and neon seemed to promise a new and exciting future. I recall as a small child, too short to see much out of the back seat window of my parents’ car, that I would be fascinated by these grand shapes passing before me on road trips. These signs punctuated my young horizon, much as the cathedral spires punctuated that of the 19th century man, connecting earth to heaven.
However, the promise that these markers of my horizon held for a better life was not so much broken as forgotten, just as many of the signs and buildings I photograph and paint have been forgotten and allowed to rust or decay.

My work is influenced by his reading of Bachelard (The Poetics of Space), Baudrillard ( The Hyper-realism of Simulation), and the poetry of Mary Oliver.

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