War Paper

It was a beautiful day on Van Nuys Boulevard. I was standing at my favorite chili dog stand when I heard it from a car radio nearby: the United States had begun bombing Iraq. Hope was annihilated in an instant. I walked until dark because I couldn't go home. I had no studio. No wall. No canvas large enough. There was only the street and the long way home.

Nineteen years later, in a studio four floors above Skid Row, another war broke. This time I went to the wall.