Oil and gilding on canvas. 96″ x 115″.  Collection of the artist.

This was my 1st painting using the subject of a cage.  I was in a DC junk store and saw a chicken cage.  I bought it and it became a standard still life sitting on my studio floor.  At some point I took ropes and hung it in the air about 3 feet off the floor, lit it with spots and painted it.  The arrows came out of my love of Kurosawa films and the fact that my Great Grandfather was a samurai who fought for the Emperor in one of the last samurai battles.  He was said to have held our with his men in a duck restaurant with tatamis shielding them from incoming arrows and musket balls.