My first word was truck and by the time I could talk I knew the name of every car on the road.  As a teenager I was galvanized when I discovered car magazines with pictures of the Grand Prix of Monaco. I had never seen such exotically beautiful automobiles and Monaco was nothing like my home town of Cleveland Ohio.

I eventually attended the Monaco Grand Prix twice,  not as a racing driver as I youthfully fantasized but as a credentialed racing photographer.  I had curated an exhibition of the history of Grand Prix photography for the Long Beach Museum of Art and the Detroit institute of Art which was my entry point into the world of international motor racing and I photographed Formula One races from 1982-85 and the 24 hours of LeMans in 1984 and 85.

In the late 1980’s I explored the same subject matter and source materials for both assembled photographic constructions and slide projection that questioned monolithic ideas of masculinity, competition, success and failure. I created a three projector slide/audio performance entitled “Drive” which mixed my own racing photographs my with childhood pictures with my first pedal cars.  I presented "Drive" at numerous alternative art venues and also College Art Association meetings.

As a Marine my father served in the South Pacific during World War II.  He never spoke about those experiences except one day when he briefly mentioned he had seen something so horrible he never wanted me to have anything to do with war.  His scrapbook contained  pictures he collected from another marine who photographed while they were stationed on Guam and Kwajalein that showed palm trees and vast white sand beaches mixed with jeeps, destroyed military hardware, abandoned kamikaze one man submarine torpedoes, and surrendering prisoners of war.

Eventually I learned he had witnessed a nuclear explosion test somewhere in the South Pacific near Kwajalein. He had been exposed to a massive amount of radiation that eventually caused him years of suffering and pain from weakened, crumbling bones, multiple myeloma and finally leukemia which caused his death when he was only 48 years old.

Using his scrapbook and also the daily letters he had written to my mother as sources I produced "Me and the Blue Pacific"a second three projector slide/audio performance about my father's South Pacific experience.  I also created "Real Men Dead Heroes" an exhibition of large photographic assemblages I first exhibited at Southern Exposure Gallery in San Francisco in 1991.

Real Men Dead Heroes, Photographic Assembly, 30” x 40”, 1990.

Real Men Dead Heroes, Installation View, The Soldiers Story, Photographic Constructions with hinged panels, front view.

Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1991.