OpeningStatement

    First and foremost, Thank you for taking the time to walk through this exhibition. Fourteen months and over two hundred paintings later, I am both happy and sad to say that it is finally complete. A strange feeling, indeed.

    The original intention of what became Stealing Signs was to be a few pieces created as a Thank You letter to a worn and ailing Grandfather; the man who introduced me to baseball, came to every single game I ever played as a child and who would throw pepper with me in the front yard whenever I asked, no matter how preoccupied or tired he was. Memories like that are inescapable and stick to our ribs like pine tar.

    With this idea quickly germinating into a "project" and later maturing into a rather large work of art, the purpose of it changed at about the half way point. I found myself obsessing over them, over thinking each piece and for a while I was even treating them like adopted children. It quickly became apparent to me that I had worked myself into a therapy session and I was the doctor. The first 60 or so pieces were either destroyed, traded or given away in order to properly re-start this recovery process.

    Aesthetically, this is very much about baseball. However, if you choose to, I urge you to look a little closer. After the project was completed, only then did I notice the soap opera that was playing itself out over these pages with the dialog not always in writing. There are lies being told, love sickness, addiction, impromptu confessions, physical ailments, adultery, crippling shyness, new love-crushes and even some cheating (allegedly) at the game these ghosts loved so much.

I suppose some things just never change with Baseball.

I do hope you enjoy it,