View From the Pier

My family and my life as a first generation Italian American, inspire my art work.
This work is about my love of Red Hook.I have lived here since 1994.In addition to the art paintings, included on the wall, is a poem I wrote after I bought my house. The poem says it all.
I have always been riveted by the arabesque pose of the Statue of Liberty. I often think of her welcoming my 9 year old father in 1914 on his way from Italy. After the Red Hook fire of 2025, I was lucky to secure a studio on a pier that looks straight at the Statue. As I paint her, she looks right at me.
When I was young, my parents took me to see the movie, ''On the Waterfront,'' with Marlon Brando. I never forgot it. "I could’ve been a contenda." The setting of the movie is Red Hook, although mostly shot in Hoboken, one major scene was shot on these docks. My 3 paintings are based on screen shots that I took while rewatching the movie.
This bar, the owners, and its patrons have impacted my life in every way. From my archives I chose to include articles in which the print media depicted Sunny’s Bar in those transitional years.

I am the only child of Italian American parents who arrived in America from the hills of Tuscany and the mountains of Apuglia. The narrative of my life has been the inspiration for my art work.

The iconography of the Catholic Church, the handmade clothes of my childhood, vintage photos of my parents, pop imagery from movies, and the artists of the early Renaissance are some of my constant influences. They populate my art in one form or another.

Fresh out of college, I found myself in Colorado and began to teach art. I continued my art teaching and art educational supervising career after I moved to New York City with my son and earned a masters degree. 

Fortunately I found myself buying a house in Red Hook in 1994, where I have a studio. Red Hook reminds me of where I grew up in Bridgeport Connecticut, a hard scrabble blue collar city. I feel at home here.

At the end of my street I see Ellis Island where my father, along with his mother and siblings, landed in 1914. Not far away is the iconic Statue of Liberty, glowing in her technicolor dreamcoat. I always turn to look at her. She inspires me.