City Life
The Central-Jersey Landscape
As this site grows, you may notice some recurring themes. One of these is life in the city — specifically telephone poles and brick buildings.
Since I was very young, I’ve felt that there is something intensley lonely about a row of telephone poles. Some people anthropomorphize cars, or computers. For me, a humming transformer above a summer street has always been the apotheosis of urban entropy.
The above print is one of the first I ever made, from an edition of just three. I’ve since lost the plate, and it remained untitled until I scanned it for this site.
Back in my first college printmaking class, I had to make a self-portrait that also represented the place I live. Thinking through the assignment, I kept returning to the view you get of the Newark skyline from the New Jersey Turnpike around Exit 14.
The view from the overpass is a sea of Greek Orthodox church spires stretching underneath you. My fellow Garden-Staters will notice that this picture is backwards; coming from NYC, the view should be looking out West-Southwest from the passenger-window. Close friends of mine also might realize this is reversed because I would have to be in the passenger seat. The truth is that, despite my previous relief-print experience, I forgot that the print would be reversed when I pulled it.
But that’s why I like relief-work: Once you make that cut, you’ve got to finish what you started.
Here’s a more recent one. Eve took this photo on her last trip back to Highland Park. I really liked it, so I asked her if I could turn it into a linocut. Luckily, she agreed.
