Three years ago, I spent some time in Vienna and Munich. In Vienna, my friend and I happened upon an old W.W. II bunker that had been converted into an aquarium. There is a miniature rain forest on the top 2 floors, and the outside of the back of the building is used as a climbing school. (It was 8 or 9 stories high). At the very top of the bunker was stencilled the words, “In the still of the night”. Also in Vienna, I visited several art museums, one of which also made me think of a bunker, although its long, vertically slitted windows were more reminiscent of medieval battlements than the fortifications that came later. In Munich, I found another bunker, which had not been converted, but just stood there unused, perhaps as a reminder to people of Munich’s past. A year later, I visited Scheviningen, a town on the North Sea cost, and found more W.W. II bunkers dug into the dunes.

When I arrived home, I began thinking of all the wars that have been fought, and the recent war that the U.S. is still fighting in Iraq. I started making pictures that contained elements of many wars. I found a picture of a tree that only grows in the desert. It’s called the Acacia Camelthorn. I used that as a kind of symbol of desert. As well, it reminded me of all the organic detritus that eventually formed the oil pools in this part of the world. These are the things that were going on in my mind when I made these pictures.