My First 40 Years

Back Bay Skyline

1. Back Bay Skyline 1991 oil on linen 22x52” private collection
   Fortunately, the attendant let me climb the parking garage steps to do this painting for an entire summer. It was like I had my own studio looking across the Back Bay.
   I had painted a number of sites around my studio… I began to wonder what things looked like from different perspectives. I liked the look of the old brick architecture of the Danker and Donohue Garage on Newbury Street seen from Boylston Street. But where to stand? As I scouted out the area from the bridge between Hynes Auditorium and Berklee School of Music, I looked behind me and up; there was a tall parking garage. I asked the attendant if I could do a painting from the fire escape, and to my surprise, after asking if I was going to avoid the roof and walking around the cars (which I had no intention of doing), he said yes! So my mornings for a summer were set. It’s hard to describe the beauty of sunlit brick roofed buildings on an early June morning looking across the rooftops toward Cambridge. But here, I try.