In the late 1960's I paid my way thru Pennsylvania law school by taking photographs of college graduates receiving their diplomas at Brown, Laffayette, and other colleges. I participated in and photographed anti war demonstrations in Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and the Woodstock music festival. In early 1970 I moved to New York City, rented a loft on Avenue A and 7th Street and began work at a Park Avenue law firm.
With my first pay check I bought color dark room equipment and began experimenting with color photography. Other artists in the building saw my work and suggested I was trying to paint with my camera. So I took a beginning drawing class at the Art Students League on 57th Street and experienced an epiphany at my first life drawing session. I studied drawing, painting and sculpture at the Art Students League, the New School and the Brooklyn Museum School. I painted in water color, guache, pastel, and acrylic, sculpted in clay and experimented with abstract and conceptual art but was unsatisfied with those directions.
I wanted to portray what I saw in a new and better way and began reading articles on human perception at Flower 5th Avenue Hospital Library. I drew and painted on clear plastic, viewing my subject through the plastic. I compared my right and left eye vision using an eye patch to treat the same subject as seen by each eye separately. I tried combining the separate visions. I was attracted to Egyptian reliefs at the Met and did a series of window paintings which presaged my break through into relief in mid 1975. Here is a survey of my New York art work prior to relief.