Green Woman Tries to Breathe
(Where I Come From)
Acrylic & oil on canvas
36” x 48”
2005

Imagine living in a quiet, dead end street. Out the back door is a meadow that stretches for 2 km to a gentle beach. Across the 20 km bay is the Manhattan skyline. Clear days, blue skies, amazing childhood memories in the natural world until “development” came to town. First came the Sewerage Plant, then the International Flavours & Fragrances Company (IFF) —and then the cancers and respiratory diseases in the residents (mostly children). Today, New Jersey is the most populated state per square mile in the US with the pollution/environmental problems that go with it. Green Woman Tries to Breathe warns us that pollution is a physical manifestation of greed.