Art in New York

In 1962, I moved from Minneapolis to New York city. I worked in Rambusch Decorating Company and the Mel Greenland Studio. I wanted stained glass to be as expressive and free as painting. I began to create stained glass windows, too. However, I continued oil painting. These works are in relatively chronological order from 1962 to 1965.

• Pacific Ocean, a large mixed media work from the west coast. There I gathered strength to face the big city. The oil painting glazes over newspaper clippings of the distressing current events of 1962. Collection of Marj Spoerri. See also a photo of Leo Geary at the breakwater.

• Revolving Rose, an oil painting where midwest crone meets NY in a financial district revolving door. 1962. Continues in a QTVR immersion image.

• Lower East Side. 1963. Contradictions and contact of cultures. American and Russian flags furling in the wind. A billboard breaks the sound barrier in the sky. Polished nails change the diaper-rashed babe. A homeless bum is twisted under feet rushing subway. Arm whips a belt near the endless fire escape. A large dark mouth opens.

• Harold Rambusch getting old.

• The Fish Died, Early in the Morning.

• Bomb. 1963. The bomb falls from a decorative church arch, rising in a mushroom cloud.

• Manhattan, screen painting, overview of the island.

• Spring rain, a narrow vertical oil painting.

• Grape Arbor, a 3D box painting of the four sides and top, inside out.

• Passage of a Leaf is the first stained glass window that I cut, stained, painted, fired, leaded, and puttied - all by myself. A painterly vision of the growth, death, and fall of a leaf, with my footprint and handprint spanning the reach. This window was destroyed by firemen in 1971. (See a larger graphic.)

• JFK/Rock and Roll is a four-panel oil painting of the funeral for John F Kennedy, 1964.

• Access to the Cloisters, a stained glass commission for the office of J. Tatkin. 1964. This panel was part of a show at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in 1965.

• Portrait of a NY Person, Iwin Klein, oil painting.

• Grass/Path, choice of the defined or the undefined path. A screen painting in five hinged panels. This is a sequel to the 1960 Path Through Weeds. I finished it later, out west.

After a few years, I began to long for the sun and cosmic connections, eventually moving back to California.