A corner of the room is crossed a) by a rope b) by an axe and c) by a dark shadow with a raised hand.

An axe hanging off the wall by a rope forms the centerpiece and sets the mood. The diagonal slant of the wall with its Mouse silhouette opening counters the opposite diagonal of the axe. The severed foot is a grotesque visual exclamation point.

Mickey Mouse's presence in my painting is unexpected only if you don't know that I have lived in a Disney dominated environment for the past third of a century. As this painting suggests, I have mixed feelings about the Mouse. When I first came to Southern California it seemed like the Mouse was worth caricaturing. So when I found a toy Mickey doll, I used it in a number of paintings of Mickey. People said I might be sued but like everyone else I am protected by the right of free speech - even if that speech is comic.

Inspired by Hopper New England coastal scenes, I reshaped the central rocks in a Hopper seascape to take the shape of Mickey. The interconnected dark values join together to become the familiar profile shape of the Mouse's head.

The door into a wall with flowered wall paper has the shape of Mickey Mouse's head. The axe coming from the door along with the chopped off fingers reflects the dark reading the artist ascribes to the Disney icon. This is one of a number of Disney oriented paintings that followed the artist's relocation to Southern California in 1990.

Taken from a Magritte painting.

A play on Hopper's painting Sunday Morning.

Framed in a light colored wood.