Saigon
68 - 69
WE CAME BECAUSE
WE BELIEVE
WE LEAVE BECAUSE
WE ARE DISALLUSIONED.*
WE COME BACK BECAUSE
WE ARE LOST
WE DIE BECAUSE
WE ARE COMMITTED

*That's the spelling on the lighter. . .

When the Twin Towers collapsed, I was asleep in a hotel in Dak To (we were 12 hours ahead of US time). The next morning was hard to assimilate; there were more questions, no answers and despite the surprising kindness of the Vietnamese, I just wanted to go home. There were no flights. It was unclear when international flights would be allowed in US airspace. I tried to focus on what was green and alive, the unrelenting force and intensity of growth, the songs of birds and the silence between birdcalls, to avoid panic. When I got back, I started painting-- and am still painting-- this series. They started more green and hopeful. With the war in Iraq, things seem darker.

The painting dedicated to Sidney L. Tumpson is a meditation on my Dad who died in 1999. He was a bombardier-navigator on a B-17 in the 8th Airforce during the Second World War. He never spoke of his war experiences. Now this begins to make sense.

The flag has names of some of the campaigns and battles in Vietnam and in the first Iraq war written in the red and white stripes, while the stars began to escape and fly like my songbirds.