State and Main was a project long in the making. Most of the time (a couple of years) was spent in thinking about it. I knew that I wanted a group of children playing in a street as if that street were a beach with the rising ocean waters rising up to them. This time, it is the children who carry on as usual, as each generation does, while the adults suddenly become aware of their peril. I tried out many arrangements for the city street and sky line and none of them seemed to work until it occurred to me to make the line of buildings curve as they might if they were falling into the sea. The characters in this picture came from many sources. The little girl in pink started out as my granddaughter. Some of the others were came from my collection of black and white photography books. Others were made up. I thought that the iceberg floating in the distance was a nice touch, representing the melting ice caps. And the greenish sky gives the whole thing an ominous tone. Now that I have discovered the power of tiny white dots in representing foamy water, I might go back into this painting and add some. 54"x40"
