Oh For The Love of Rectangles

One of my teachers, Barney Rubenstein, once told our painting class "There are some of us who will leave children behind and then there are those of us who will leave rectangles behind when we die."
I am in the rectangle camp. I love rectangles particularly those rectangles that represent windows, doors and laundry. And like Hopper, I especially love rectangles made from cast light on walls. Why? It's because rectangles are the landscape of my life. It began with looking through the bars of my crib out the window covered in frost to the neighbor's window beyond. There was no great out doors in East Boston. There were empty rectangular lots where buildings once stood. There were triple decker homes with doors and windows that led to places unknown and unseen. Some were safe and some were threatening. They all effected me and left a lasting imprint of rectangles in my psyche and in my art.

Now, my landscape artist friends find this all mystifying. What could be more beautiful than nature? My answer is "finding a rectangle there." I am incurable. And so my love affair with the rectangle is a love story that will end with leaving rectangles behind painted with rectangles.


(Que Bella - Cagnoli, Italy)