BERTHA is a love letter to New York. This amazing place has given me so many friendships, mentors, experiences, and multiple lifetimes worth of good live music.

ITHACA NY thank you for letting me find my inner hippie. From Holmes Hall to Green Street, all the characters in between. You know who you are ✌🏼 catch you over at First Dam after the bars close.

Ithaca wasn’t where I heard the Grateful Dead for the first time. That was in the back seat of a tan sedan ripping down Sligo road on a cruise with @ethanmicucci and Andy Hopkins. It wasn’t until years later it actually all clicked for me.

Moving to Ithaca for school actually made me allergic to seeing the Steely everywhere, Jerry and the bears seemed very overplayed at the time, and I always ignored the music. When I actually had my “Dead Moment”, it was during a St Stephen jam in the middle of the song, overlooking Ithaca Falls at sunset and I swear I saw the future. I’ve had a couple of those powerful musical scores hit in my life at a big moment and this stays at the top of my list. The Dead also led me to Bisco 🖤 B4L Always

My friends and I moved from Ithaca to NYC and we became closer like a family here over the years in Brooklyn, and we still are to this day. We were all together at the hockey game I bought this jersey at in 2016 (?) @f_mbot - NYPD vs NYFD (it’s a real thing hosted at Barclays Center).

Bertha is a record of all these stories and legacies living together, the Empire State spiraling together like two strands of DNA. City and Nature as one big YERRRR 🔥

When faced with the idea of my own mortality, it’s the best feeling to look back on my life here in NY🌹many thanks to all who have supported this art show, pushed me in my career, and allowed me to hit all the bumps in the road along the way. Max pain for all the life experiences, it is the way.

“When the shadows grow
It'll do you fine
When the cold winds blow
It'll ease your mind
The shape it takes
Could be yours to choose
What you may win, what you may lose”