People ask why I paint on shooting targets, thus here is a brief summary of how it got started. They have come a long way from their point of origin which began in the international Finance Building in Washington D.C. I was working there as a decorative painter among 500 other workers. Most of them were male. Graffiti graced the evolvng structure and I was surprised it was primarily of penis'.Hmmm, sort of a marking of their turf I wondered? Flaunting of their feathers? One day, however, riding in the freight elevator with about a half a dozen guys a photocopied image I came face to face with disturbed me. It was a nude woman on all fours with her buttocks positioned against a bulls-eye symbol.

In response to this, I made my own bulls-eye collages with scantilyclad men and ppaper shooting targets and posted them around the site. It was appropriating their own language to try to convey how it felt to be confronted with a symbol of yourself in such a vulnerable position. Some men I saw looking at my collages seemed perplexed and embarassed, one was "grossed out."

Since then, my work on paper targets, has becomemuch more personal. Some socio-political issues are explored but many are purely private. I am not targetingsomething but turning these targets into shields, protective metaphors. The works on Cabin Safety Instruction Princilples sprung from the catastophe of 9,11, Themes of safety, personal and societal are investigated. The idea of summoningprotective powers and questioning the balance of power with self, others and the world is the main thrust off this work.

The Vermont landscapes are a different genre. All done in oil paints and usually started on site and finished in the studi from photographs and sketches.