Earth, Fire, Water

When I painted my response to Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo's Idea del tempio della pittura (Temple of Painting, Milan, 1584), I constructed four works that explored the four elements, and four of the seven notorious figures in painting that Lomazzo refers to. He makes the following correlates: Raphael/Air, Michelangelo/Earth, Caravaggio/Fire, and Titian/Water. In Renaisance tradition of astrological mysticism, Lomazzo attempted to account for determinants in the characteristic styles of major painters of his day. Since the developmental history of my hometown, Scranton, PA included a type of rebirth from the death of steel production to the birth of anthracite coal, I related its renaissance to the ancestors' of the immigrating population. Europeans and eastern Europeans who had immigrated during the Industrial Revolution spent their lives in the rebirth of eastern Pennsylvania after iron production went north. More efficient water-ways made New York a better provider of steel. Previously, Scranton, Pa. was actually the sole producer of iron rails for our country's railroad industry. Influx of immigrants and a growing coal mining industry brought new life to Pennsylvania's northeast. Industrial architecture and abandoned mining sites provided me with not only an exotic childhood playground, but also with unending imagery for photography and creative expression. As opposites attract, my interests developed to include the figure in motion, dance and performance, especially elements of Butoh. I am investigating a foil to stationary, habitable architecture with reference to the structure of the human body, and its motion including maps, diagrams and charts.