
My Work About Rita Finnegan
Before becoming Rita's husband, I presented myself as a persona in my work, using my image as if an actor usually in ridiculous or ironic situations. The work was personal, idiosyncratic, and satiric, though often presented humorously as high drama. Work produced early in our growing relationship at Illinois State University was concerned with the difficulties inherent in forging a relationship. I followed Rita to New York and her image in my work became that of an actor as well. In depicting the human figure, I have one rule that is somehow very important to me and lies actually at the heart of the motivation of my art: I render from memory and imagination. I try to think and express how one moves or how light moves across features. It is a primitive and magical understanding of art: That one can essentially re-create on a flat surface something that "lives" and is expressive of an actual object or person. That a rendering more faithful to nature can be produced through observation or referencing photographs misses the point. That I am not always successful in making these images realistic or convincing somehow adds to the meaning for me. It is the process in trying to do so rather than the end result in which the art resides. And in making Rita's image, I strive to be honest. I cannot say the same for my own image.






Move to Brooklyn
After earning her BFA degree at Illinois State University, Rita was admitted into the Master's Degree program. She started her post-graduate study at the Brooklyn Museum as recipient of the Max Beckmann Fellowship, a program designed as a seminar of young international artists meeting and working together in a large studio room of the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Though we both were honored by receiving fellowships, our pooled money was barely enough for only one of us to venture to New York City as the fellowship did not provide shelter, living expenses, or even much advice on how to go about starting residency in New York City. Armed with $700 and two suitcases of clothes and a one-way train ticket, Rita arrived at Penn Station and hailed a cab to only find the driver refused to take her to a Brooklyn YWCA on 3rd Avenue because he feared what might happen to her. Instead, he took her to a safe and modest hotel, but 10% of her money was gone after that first night.
I joined her and her roommate the following year in a railroad apartment on 8th Avenue in Park Slope.
