This series was sparked by a visit to a small shoemaking factory in Warren, R.I. Something about the heavy, oily, cast-iron machines standing like totems around the perimeter of the room fascinated me. But these paintings are not about making shoes, rather, the machines are the vehicle which brought together what I had been thinking about during the last few years -- the tight structure and symbolism of 13th century medieval paintings, photos of fragile and crashed airplanes in three Russian WWI albums found in an antique store, Lee Bontecou's restropective and the British war paintings of WWI and WWII. All these elements are combining to express thoughts on the inevitability of wars, the two sides of religion and ambition and how these human behaviors are playing out in the world today.