I’ve added a full essay on my project, including my inspiration, history, and images of the collection.
A preview:
“Sketches of Old New York,” is an art project focused on the 19th-century city. As an urban anthropologist I’m interested above all in what makes great cities great, and what helps their people remain creative and productive, and spiritually alive. I want to revisit the cultural innovations of the Industrial Revolution that heralded a democratization of everyday life. New York’s 19th-century transformation was in turn cultural and technological, including steamships and iron bridges, electric lights and elevators, talking machines and motion pictures, but also public schools and colleges, stickball and baseball, abolitionists and suffragettes. I want to see how these innovations were reflected in the energy of the city streets. “Sketches of Old New York” starts with a trove of old photographs now in the public domain. These images are my vehicle for a Whitmanesque tour of the old town. My current paintings are an emotional prelude to a long-term project on the anthropology of the metropolis. Most of the pieces in this collection are available for purchase by my readers and the general public.”
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