I grew up in Baltimore. When I was born my family lived in a row house. Our car was parked on the street out front. In the back, little identical yards opened onto an alley, the place for riding bikes and playing catch.

My parents longed to move across the main road to the neighborhood of individual, non-attached houses. Each would have a driveway. Each would have its own backyard. There was a neighborhood school. The houses were mixed styles: brick, stone, clapboard, almost all two story, facing streets lined with maple trees.

This was the post-war dream, and they believed in it completely. A family started in a row house. Then they moved to the better neighborhood.

When I discovered a photo of a row house neighborhood, I was filled with affection for the families living in them. I wanted to create a warm vibrant depiction of the neighborhood. In my completed work, the people will not be visible. But they will fill the scene. The houses are alive with pattern and energy just as the actual houses were alive with the real aspirations and dreams of their inhabitants.

Creating image of homes – homes that evoke memories, and homes that allow us to peek inside the windows to imagine the lives within, are continually fascinating to me.