I started painting with oils at the age of 27 with my Mom, Nancy who was an avid painter who studied at The Roslyn School of Painting under the great Charles Pasqualina. My Mom hyped me up so much to Charlie about how “talented” I was that I was embarrassed to show my face at the school – but I eventually did. We had to sketch a couple of things first, then paint these 3 bottles which I refused to do because I thought it was stupid to which Charlie said, “Oh yeah so what do you think your gonna paint then?” And I showed him a photograph of which I had taken of wooden steps that led down to a rocky beach on the North Shore of Long Island. Charlie twirled his handlebar mustache and belly laughed and thought I was overly ambitious. He told me I better stick to painting the bottles and then perhaps one day soon I could progress to painting my photograph. But in my mind there was no way I was not painting what I set out to do. So after a lot of bickering back and forth between Charlie and I, 67 Steps Beach became my very first painting!
