"The Brotherhood"    Acrylic       24" x 72"                                                                 1999-2001

  "Gang member"        Acrylic                                   36" x 24"                                 2004-2005 

             

               

               "Diamond Man"       Acrylic                                   36" x 24"                             2001-02'

  "Back to the old neighborhood"           Acrylic              36" x 24"                             1996-99'

 Detail 1 of 3                                                                                                                                  

 Detail  2 of 3                                                                                                                             

Detail 3 of 3 

  "Paterson park pool games"         Acrylic on canvas               24" x 102"                2002-2003          

                  "The bott fly"          Acrylic                               36" x 24"                              1995-97'

                       "Redundant saying"         Acrylic            48" x 36"                                   94' 

                       "Angel in my basement"          Acrylic           48" x 36"                             94'

    "Sneak into heaven"        Acrylic          37"X 48"                                                                      95'

"The last interview"          Acrylic                                               36" x 48"                            96'      

 "Neighborhood back yard"      Acrylic        24" x 30"                                                                        98'

 "Lawn mower man back in town"         Oil on canvas        48" x 36"                                      97'         

 "With two days left at the beach house"       Acrylic         18" x 24"                                             03'

 "Flying fire breathing pigs"        Acrylic        17" x 24"                                                                      97'

 "Wholesome & the bronze shark"      Acrylic      48" x 12"          99'                   

                    "Red Hot"             Acrylic                            18" x 24"                                                 93' 

"Project for Ida B Wells"             Acrylic              22" x 30"                                                1995-2003 

  "Matter of a Business swim"        Acrylic               22" x 28"                                             1995-2002

                                  Acrylic                      30" x 15"                                    94'

 "Boy likes the trophy"         Acrylic             48" x 24"                         1993-94

         "P.O.W. escape"           Oil on canvas               48" x 36"                                     92'

      "Weekend warrior"        Oil on canvas        60" x 36"                                             90'

         "Classroom kiss"          Oil on Canvas       4 ft x 5 ft                                     92'                  

"Living room"  Oil on canvas        36" x 60"                                                            93'

 "The Swing" Copy from print           Oil on canvas         24" x 36"                                                     91'

 "Sakool Street"      Oil on canvas                24" x 36"                                                                 90'

 "Jarrod & Shoemaker face off"     Oil on canvas             24" x 36                                             90'

 "Henry"                                                           18" x 18"                                                94'

"Window project."                                15" x 24"                                                                        90'

EARLY ART EDUCATION 

   The earliest recollection of my first attempt at drawing was a cartoon trace from a kid's magazine. I hung my proud work on my bedroom door. Sometime later, my mother insisted that my sister & I take an art class after school and during the weekend: boy, did I dread that. The lessons were from Nannette Blinchikoff, who instructed from the basement of her home. I was six years old at the time, and only later realized she had taught me the importance of freedom in my work. I also learned respect for my tools, and began to understand the value of a good critique. 
    At 14, my mother told me I was to take private art lessons from a professor named Mrs. Fink. Her class was in the back of her son's frame shop. The room was as big as a closet, and the odor was a mixture of linseed oil & old coffee. All I wanted to do in this class was paint. I begged and pleaded, yet Mrs. Fink told me I would first have to stick to mastering the art of charcoal. So I spent two years or so perfecting my craft, only to graduate to painting with my new instructor: her son Alan. I painted in the front of the shop in plain view of the customers. I was now the human art student on display in the store. Suddenly, I felt a little more respected. In the middle of my first painting, a sci-fi landscape with blue mountains and dark skies, the shop closed. The Finks made off with my first real painting. It was never to be seen again. 
     I had an amazing professor in high school by the name of Sam Nance. First he preached about life, and then we made art. Mr. Nance was an original art professor. He was very engaging, and had honest and real values that he expressed everyday in class. I was one of the youngest students, and would later recall him telling my mother, "Todd is a very talented young man. He just needs to apply himself more, and not be so lackadaisical." He preached about life's ups and downs, and always told me that doing art was the simplistic part, getting the idea is much more difficult. Once, I tried smoking after school in a nearby bathroom and Mr. Nance stormed in. I can remember his words, and the look of disappointment in his eyes. He passed away a few months later, and I never really got a chance to speak to him again. Just like the Fink art lesson experience, I had lost the opportunity for closure.
My aunt Carol Brown-Goldberg's paintings first showed me the value in that sometimes, size does matter. I was influenced and intrigued by her colorful expressions and story telling through her work. 
    During my last three years of high school my professor, Mrs. Janice Krach, took me under her wings. Janice taught me to create art while always thinking outside the box, and then outside another box. She sometimes tried to be a complicated chalk board teacher, yet the freedom she allowed us brought more of an intimacy to the class. She encouraged me to use my talents as often as possible and not to be afraid of creating ideas which seemed difficult to reproduce on paper. This advice manifested itself through a 10 ft. mural creation on our high school wall, which I later dedicated to Mr. Nance
 

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