This series which I call “city painting” began the day after Thanksgiving 1979. I was in downtown Chicago and the streets were so densely packed with Christmas shoppers, walking was difficult. I felt anonymous, alienated, and disconnected in the crowd of holiday shoppers. I thought it a strange dichotomy that in such a densely populated area few people made real contact. That night I made a pencil drawing of people walking in a background of buildings.
In 1981 I moved to New York and continued to develop the series. I was looking for a consistent language that reflected my ideas. One day in 1990 I was riding a bus up Madison Ave. and I noticed a view framed by the bus window that cropped the pedestrian traffic at the shoulders. This gave me an idea for a language to compose with. The parallel view of people walking, their arms, torsos, legs, briefcases, shopping bags, newspapers, etc. became the basis for my compositions.