Ryle High School
$300, April 24 1999, Oil on canvas, 10" x 8"
This painting was done from life from the Ameristop across the street. Tom had brought his sister there to participate in the Special Olympics. He painted a carload of boys taunting a short fat kid with a gun because of the recent shootings in Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado where two boys shot 13 people.
 

Slater Road, Morrisville NC
$1,200, February 9 1999, Oil on canvas, 16" x 12"
From the story of the painting:
Jesse Marsh grew up here. He is up in ages now and still has a very handsome distinguished look about him, blond hair what is left not turn gray with blue eyes. One of his eyes has a drip in it like an infection. His size was huge bulk with soft large hands that turn in many directions. I met him while I was painting a smoke house that was the only thing left from a farmhouse that set near the road. "There's a well right there also where the satellite dish is now,” he said. The road used to turn off and snake over to where the Sheraton is now. You can clearly see where the road turned off. Right there was a number of barns and out buildings. "All this land is good farm land.” Jesse said.
 

Price View
$750, February 7 1999, Oil on canvas 10" x 8"
Painted from the garage of the Price Home. Situated off a single lane road, the Price home overlooks a pastoral view of the Carolina Piedmont. Rolling hay fields are line with pine and scrub oak. A lone tall old tree rises up from the landscape and dares to keep alive for a hundred years. In the foreground, Rex the neighborhood dog who adopted the prices watches over the scene.

Flying Pigs
$600, February 3 1999, Watercolor on paper 23" x 16"
My first robot that actually painted did not come until 1999 when I adapted a windup motor I got in a mechanical junk store in China Town NYC about 7 years earlier. I always wanted to do just this with the motor but it was not until I applied for a grant that I needed a real piece of art. The little machine dragged a brush across a piece of paper slowly and with visual pain. Occasionally it would pick the brush up and it made the most amazing abstract works.  The whole aspect of these machines is to give them the power to think for themselves and do what they feel is best.
Read the whole story and see the video at:
 

Henry Williams
$450, August 19 1998, Watercolor on paper, 5" x 7"
A sketch that started the oil portrait of Henry Williams that hangs in the Over-the-Rhine senior center. In 1998 he proposed to the City of Cincinnati a portrait of Henry Williams to hang in the Over-the- Rhine Senior Center and the City gave him moneys to pay for materials. Tom gave several informal talks to the patrons of the Over-the-Rhine senior center as he completed the portrait. At each talk Tom brought the unfinished painting and painting materials. He would go from table to table engaging patrons waiting for lunch and speak of the portraits process.
For the full story of the oil painting that came from this sketch go to:
 

Gentry Tobacco Warehouse, Lexington, Kentucky
$1,200, July 5 1998, Oil on canvas, 10" x 8"
Painted over four years. Tom's wife spends a day every summer in Lexington, Kentucky at a professional meeting and during that time, Tom spent his time researching the tobacco auction business for a possible painting. His patron had had in their family a large tobacco warehouse, which they had sold. He wanted to at least have a painting of it.
  

Pike Street Market, Seattle
$950, May 24 1998, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"
Tom met up with an artist relative who had the next several days off. He took Tom all over Seattle looking for a place to paint. He settled on a spot four blocks from his hotel. The market is a mix of the wealthy, tourist & transients. Over 200 fish, fruit, curiosity & touristy shops are the attraction. Taking place on a hillside to the sea, the corridors create a labyrinth of walkways and alleys. The performance is the throwing of the fish to the packer after a purchase has been made.
 

Evanswood Place
$750, July 1 1998, Oil on canvas, 30" x 24"
On a blazing hot day in July, Tom painted the paw paw patch that shares the land with a bird sanctuary, the lone expanse of land on the street Tom lives on. Every year one of the neighbors, hosts a Fourth of July picnic and a flyer is sent out. This year Tom offered to make the poster and painted the part of the street he loved the most. The sloping hill hosts several hundred-paw paw trees. Tom has harvested them for several years offering them to the neighbors who hereto for did not think they were eatable. This last year no paw paw tree bore fruit because of the drought.

Drum Point Light, Chesapeake Bay
$800, June 24 1997, Oil on canvas, 16" x 12"
The painting had a lot of sky and water with just a little more detail than the previous painting. The lighthouse named Drum Pt. was one of 49 in the Bay by 1900. Of the two thousand or so manned lighthouses in the US at the turn of the century. Drum point was rated 248th because of its elaborate Fresnel lens. Viewers of the painting called it the Thomas Pt. lighthouse because that lighthouse is still out in the Bay.
 

Tangier Island, Chesapeake Bay
$800, June 23 1997, Oil on canvas, 16" x 12"
Back on Tangier, I finished painting by 1 PM and we enjoyed a crab lunch in the cooler part of one of the many restaurants that vie for your attention lining the waterfront. Crab is served in three basic ways. As a round 3 inch by 1 inch fried cake, a soft-shelled crab fried and boiled hard shell. The fried soft shell has the appearance of eating a large bug whole. Fully satiated we set off for Solomons and Drum Pt Light Way Point #67.

Piedmont Park Gazebo II, Atlanta, Georgia
$600, May 9 1997, Oil on canvas, 10" x 8"
Tom spend a lot of time in Atlanta and got to know the city quite well. He has painted all over the region and of all the places; he likes this gazebo in Piedmont Park. In the past, he did a impressionistic canvas of it and always wanted to return. He did started two paintings each on different days. The traffic through that area of the park is quite thick and he was never without human subjects. Most Atlantians have fond memories of the gazebo.

Ancient Japanese Ship, Tokyo
$500, fall 1996, Oil on canvas, 16" x 12"
Painted from life and a postcard of an ancient ship. Tom spent several days in the home of his friend Yuso Hase. Tom had painted his portrait in NYC ten years prior. Now he was painting the canal outside his hosts’ bedroom window. All day long while he painted the weather, seem to want to do everything in one day. Sun, rain, wind, warmth & cold all followed each other as the day and the painting progressed.
 


Hong Kong Harbor
$900, fall 1996, oil on canvas, 10" x 8"
Painted from life during a trip to the Orient After taking a slow boat to china and the bullet train back. Tom's wife assisted him in setting up his easel outside the art museum and painting this view of Hong Kong proper. Normally all the boats in the painting can be seen traveling to and fro accept the junk. Mostly seen are the ferryboats and floating cranes that unload all the cargo in the harbor. Above is a building in the form of a Shinto Shrine at Victoria Peak.
 

Hong Kong
$1,200, fall 1996, Oil on canvas, 12" x 16"
Painted in the local Zoo just before return to China Combines the old with the new, which is very hard since nothing is older than ten years. The antique building in the foreground is the old hospital. Just down the hill to the right is the governor home. Tom could find those only two old buildings. The large skyscraper in the background is the bank of China. Just to the left is another bank building.
 

Village Delight, Greenwich Village
$1,200, spring 1996, Oil on canvas, 16" x 20"
Painted from life, one of the last paintings done before giving up his NYC apartment of twenty years. It was the time where showing in coffee shops was popular and this place was
a shoe in for Tom. He distributed coupons during the opening for $2 off
whatever his guests wanted. For the rest of the week he painted this view. The players are all characters and much in the way of a local neighborhood, happenings occurred.
 

Li Lac Chocolates I, New York City
$2,400, October 28 1995, Oil on canvas, 12" x 16"
Painted on the Street in New York City. Tom lived in the West Village for Twenty years. Besides painting many street scenes, he was a social portrait painter traveling the circuit from Nantucket, New York and Palm Beach. This painting is his best. The view is looking east on Christopher Street towards where his apartment was. A few blocks farther down the street is the Hudson River. The time was fall. The wind was not too bad as he sat in the gutter for many days painting. The chocolate shop is still open.
 

Christopher St. looking West, New York City
$1,200, fall 1995, Oil on canvas, 16" x 12"
You can see a tugboat going up river if you look way down the street. It is only a few blocks to the Hudson River and an easy walk to the cool breeze. During this painting session the wind was blowing terribly hard. Tom had to paint while he was holding onto the easel with his other hand. He later found out that if you must go around the corner there would be no wind at all.
 

Christopher St. Looking East, New York City
$1,200, fall 1995, Oil on canvas, 16" x 12"
This view shows Tom's old apartment building, the one he lived in for twenty years from 1978 to 1998. Only the delivery trucks and buses occupy the street. The local citizens have their automatic wheel chairs along with the
blind girl & Seeing Eye dog.
 

Surf Fishing, Nantucket
$2,400, fall 1995, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"
Painted on location at the scallop shack in Nantucket. Tom had several days to study the dories and solicit the men to pose for him. The shack was a regular meeting ground for the local men. This painting was done in the fall but in the winter is when it gets hairy. The warden watches the bay and monitors the men out on the cold frozen water. If there is any trouble, he can get help out there quickly.

Greenwich Village A Primo Guide To Shopping Eating and Making Merry In True Bohemia
$14, Released May 5 1995, by Saint Martins Press, 27 paintings by the artist adorn the pages. Tom's good friends and neighbors wrote the book.
 

Carolina Piedmont
$2,400, fall 1994, Oil on canvas, 16" x 20"
Tom in the past had painted many landscape with a power tower in the middle of the composition. Here, on a trip to the Carolina Piedmont sat in his hotel room working on yet another painting of the power tower that stood outside his window. Recently married, his wife asked him not to paint the tower and this is the result, a clear view of the Carolina Piedmont with its sandy soil, eroding rolling hills and pine and oak scrub.

Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard
$2,400, July 10 1994, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"
Painted on location during a sailing vacation. Oak Bluffs is one of the few places where you can see both black & white people vacationing together. Tom set up his easel in view of the congregation tent. In the old days, people would come to worship. Today, people still come for the religious services. The homes surrounding the main commons are a combination of tent and home. In the painting, Tom painted Whoppie Goldberg and Melanie Griffith out of a picture in a magazine.

Zero Main Street, Nantucket
$2,400, July 2 1994, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"
One of two paintings Tom did while on vacation in Nantucket. In the past he had painted this same scene over and over again but he had sold all of them. This one he did for himself. It is one of the four different views he painted of the famous fountain. The view is of a large building that used to be a counting house for the ships that came into port but today houses shops below and offices above. During the summer, they hang a large model of a whaling ship above the door.

Pacific Club, Nantucket
$2,400, July 1 1994, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"
Painted during a vacation trip to Nantucket. In previous years, Tom would paint on the street everyday. Now, while on a sailing trip he has to return to his learning roots. He would paint five different scenes of the famous fountain. This view was one of them. The other five were Zero Main Street, Pacific National Bank & The Looms. Today there are no large trees for they got too old and died.

Mount Denali, Alaska
$2,400, June 20 1994, Oil on canvas, 40" x 30"
Painted in Denali State Park after climbing up a 2000 foot mountain. You can see the only road that goes into the park below. Tom hiked up from the parking lot where private cars had to stop and after stopping every now and then looking for a good view stopped at the level you can see across the valley. In 45 mile, an hour winds where the bugs slapped his face and took refuge on the lee side of his face and as he continually slapped his face with a cloth hat and while continually holding onto his easel he painted this canvas. His lunch laying around and the ground squirrels running about discussing his work it was only after Tom was safe back at the hotel that he realized that a bear could have followed his scent and showed up to have a bite and a look see.

Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska
$1,800, June 18 1994, Oil on canvas, 40" x 30"
Outside of Ketchikan is the edge of the Saint Alegis Ice Flow. The size of Rhode Island the glacier leads to the vast ice field in the middle of the mountain range. A tranquil shelter belonging to the National Park Service offers this view of the glacier. Tom took the bus from town and hiked a mile up the road to spend the day painting. Helicopters and tourist passed by taking in the scene on one of the four rainless days in Juno.

Ketchikan, Alaska
$2,400, June 16 1994, Oil on canvas, 40" x 30"
Painted from life while on his honeymoon. Tom brought five large canvases with him making his total pack 90 pounds. Everyday there was a window to paint Tom would set out to spend the day painting. This view was the finest in Alaska. The day was also special for it was one of the rare clear rainless days in a town where it rained 360 days a year. In this painting, Tom was experimenting with a novel compositional method of having a sunlight streak run diagonally through the canvas.

Inside Passage II
$2,400, June 14 1994, Oil on canvas, 40" x 30"
Painted off the fantail of the ferry. Tom was using a novel approach to composition. The painting was done as an experiment in placing various local items on top of a landscape.  Looking closely you can see a sea plane in the water to the right, fins of the Orcas in the water on the left, salmon jumping on the hill sides on the right, a mountain man in the clouds on the right and a breaching hump back whale in the clouds on the left.

Inside Passage I
$2,400, June 12 1994, Oil on canvas, 40" x 30"
The first painting done on Tom's honeymoon on the fantail of the ferry boat as it left Seattle traveling up the inside passage to Alaska. The hills slowly rolled getting larger and larger as they reached the mountains. The whale and kayaks were added from travelogs.