Newton, New Jersey is where our family cemetery is, and where my parents are buried. My
wife and I, and my siblings will all end up there too. All the pieces in this series utilize things left in my parents’ house. Broken toys from various childhoods in the 1950s through the 1970s; pieces of a formica kitchen counter circa 1964; rusty remnants from Dad’s workshop, and all manner of odds and ends that were saved for no apparent reason except thrift – my folks were children of the Great Depression.

The driftwood piece was made by my mother and hung in their garage for decades. I added the color.

The aesthetics of the raw material are forever linked to specific times and places. Consequently
these pieces are all very sentimental for me – dioramas for the Northrup Museum of
Natural History.

I’ll be working on this series for years.