Mini statement: I paint in NYC. A colleague in studio is from Mexico and his painting showed a conceptual interpretation of the crossing from Mexico into the United States. We talked about it and this got me thinking about Liberty, Lady Liberty, and what freedom actually means. And how we take it for granted. This painting is about all that. Lady Liberty is not ordinary, but an extraordinary thing made up of ordinary components. I started thinking how something ordinary can become extraordinary and rise to the level of a symbol and the object can be embued with life and meaning of its own. My grandparents all individually came through Ellis Island and arrived at the port of New York. The first thing they saw was the Lady in the Harbor. My Grandparents are all gone now, but the Lady is still there, and I can still see the change come over my grandparents' faces when they told me about the first moment when they saw the statue, and how they realized they had reached America. So, I guess what I'm saying is, an extraordinary object can appear ordinary if you see it all the time and you can take it for granted, and we all take our freedom for granted in a way that my collegue, and my grandparents could never do.