The Conversation At 3AM Collage

I live on the Bowery. I moved to the Bowery at the end of 1975 or 1976"”I don't remember which at this time. But Debbie Harry lived across the street on the top floor. Poets John Giorno and William Burroughs were down the block. Lynda Benglis was there as well, and down the street was the loft where the movie "Pull My Daisy" was filmed. I think it was Robert Frank's loft. A young Barry Bostwick lived up near 4th Street. Ping Chong was living on Bleecker Street at that time, as were Daniel Nagrin and Lee Nagrin, dancer Lee Connor, and Gin Louie, of the Lower East Side Print Shop. Judy Linn was on Elizabeth Street, Robert Fosdick several doors down from me, and Robert Mapplethorpe lived on Bond Street. These were just a few of the people in the neighborhood whom I knew or knew of at that time. I met and learned of so many more in the years to come. My loft is filled with a lot of original texture and pattern, tin, walls, all from the era the building was first built in mid-19th C. Back in the 70s, the AIR law (not to be confused with the loft law) was in effect and I had to go to a city agency to be approved to live in this loft. I did. I was. I still do. In the 70s I focused on watercolor and cut paper dimensional works, utilizing grid and brushstroke structure, in individual pieces as well as multiple editions, "Emergence Series," "0," "Mantiq Altair: The Conference of the Birds," "Zia,". I participated in shows at 55 Mercer Gallery, Getler-Pall Gallery on 57th Street, Brooke Alexander Gallery, and the Kromex Gallery in Rockefeller Center (now studio spaces for The Today Show.) I created several performance pieces, "Source," and "Place," and worked throughout the 70s with theater director Ping Chong as media designer. By the 80s I had expanded my grid work to flat prints; "The Baker Makes Good His Escape," "Robert LeVer Seeks Entrance to the Great Lady's Nation," "The Governor's Hunt for His Wife's Presence," watercolors and larger oil paintings, and some sculpture. Some of these works have found their way into museum collections. In 1984, I created the performance piece "The Life and Times of Magenta Lil" for "˜The Monument Redefined' show in Brooklyn. All the while, I continued working with cut paper, and created a series of collages that are now in collections worldwide. I had a one-man show of my watercolors, collages and sculptures in Pittsburgh in 1989 at the Marcus Gordon Gallery.