Pittsburgh, land of decay, a fallow field I landed in in 2003 after NYC.  Bought a house in Homestead, former "steel capital of the world" where steel for WWII battleships and the Brooklyn Bridge came from.  The factory is a mall.  Where the workers lived is a mostly abandoned ghetto housing retirees, some working poor, the redlight aspect of the steel factory remains, plenty of crack, heroin, and prostitutes.  Beautiful churches (largely abandoned), and dive bars (in business).  I rented a studio in the midst of this, over 4,000 square feet for $250 a month, had a great time, did a lot of work by the time I left in 2008.

idealistic young man volunteers for war gets sent to beautiful but deadly Somalia after "black hawk down" ....Somalian country side and women amazingly beautiful, women in different textile combinations, traveled from location to location with B co. 1/87 light infantry battalion, 10th Mountain division with other medics Buzz and Scroggins.  It was weird, that lizard switch clicking in country locked and loaded, but fortunately never had to hurt anyone.

This is my abstract art diary of a war zone.  They are gouache on paper, I was the head medic, I brought paper in the medicine trunk and cut down brushes to fit in my ammo can.  These began after a young woman I was mad for broke up, a dear john call, so I stopped painting envelopes for her and did these.  She was nice enough to let me mail my paintings to her as they accumulated and would cash checks and buy and send art supplies to me.

The first of these was titled "Windy day in the Kaleidoscope" by Corporal Nash.  He was unhappy, but he loved to look at this painting and listen to jazz and blues cassettes on his Walkman and go "oh yeah."

We moved every week to two weeks.  I set up a different studio in every location.  My favorite studio was on a table that I made using bullet proof tank glass for a table top on a heavy iron gear left behind in a Soviet tank repair factory I called the tomb. 

At first I was blown away by the beauty of the place, but by the end I was depressed that we are all evil and only conditions keep us from exhibiting our true nature all the time.  The colors of my paintings reflect the initial fascination, but by the end they reflect the rhythm of tank and truck tracks in sand olive drab clothes, tents, equipment.  Color returned in the last two paintings I painted in Ohio after returning to the states, still processing, drinking and driving slow for hours on back country roads in the middle of the night lights off under the moonlight.  Watching and listening to fire crackle in the wood burning stove in the woods in my parents house when I got home safe.