There was a time when I became interested in both perspective and the Big
Bang Theory. What must the very first Cosmic "event" have looked like if we
were there to have witnessed it? Surely it would have had a central "point"
from which all matter was "disseminated." There must have been unfathomable
power to generate such a genesis. I was interested in capturing the power in
three dimensions and in representing the power itself through the use of
large blocks each of which radiated from "the point." Upon completion of the
painting, I was pleased to see there was also a balance in the "gravity" in
the colorful blocks themselves. There seemed not to be a pulling inward or a
pushing outward in this explosive display. It was for this reason that I
chose to title the painting "Stellar Balance."

The execution of Stellar Balance was not particularly easy. Since it involved
a basic knowledge in perspective drawing, it was necessary to resign myself
to the fact that the vanishing points (those points on the imaginary horizon
to which the planes of the object themselves "point") would exist
approximately two to three feet away from the painting's perimeter. For this
reason, it was necessary to build extensions to the drafting table on which
the linen was stretched. Only then could the angles at the ends of all of the
block-shapes be accurately drawn -- so as to line up with those predetermined
points. One other tool used in the construction of 'Stellar Balance' was the
Omicron Beam Compass Set. Without this handy tool -- about the size of one's
fist, it would have been impossible to determine the radial distance from the
center (of the event). All vanishing points existed on this circle. The
circle was very large relative to the limited size of the table I used for
this painting.

Finally, I was interested in having a colorful array of stars on a background
of deep space black. I painted them individually using reds to represent "red
giants," blues to represent smaller hotter stars, and whites to represent
still smaller hotter stars.

Part of the inspiration for Stellar Balance came from my having met another
artist in 1980 who painted very large images of deep space. I do not recall
his name. His work fascinated me though. His paintings were very unusual
because they did not have anything other than stars in them. Actually, I
should correct myself here because they did include nebulosities. There were
beautiful arrays of pink "gas clouds" and vast expanses of black. Throughout
each of his very large canvas paintings, there were tens of thousands of
stars -- all of various colors. He painted only these kinds of pieces.