I am a lover of the night sky and I walk to a place 3 miles from my city neighborhood which has a view of a craggy bluff called East Rock. It is my destination before I turn around to go home again. The sky is dark enough in spite of the downtown city lights -- and I can see the constellations that have always been my seasonal calendar since I started studying them over 25 years ago. Leo and Orion are the heroes of my sky and are, in reality, opposite to each other in the night sky. Orion is paramount in winter, and Leo is equally so in the spring.

This oil reflects my love for this landscape and also my inner unrest over the deafening polarization of the political divide -- not only in my own country, but everywhere. These amazing star patterns and the ancient mythologies that they inspired thousands of years ago, give me some peace and hope -- and painting my interpretation of them overcomes my occasional feelings of despair.