Skid Row Conversations is an interpretation of the culture, character, and chaos from within a section of Downtown LA,  known as Skid Row.  I spent the better part of 3 years walking around and through Skid Row gathering.   One of the largest populations of homeless people in the United States estimated close to 5000 residents Skid Row has been around since the 1930"s.  I spent  afternoons walking only a few blocks from the glitter of Downtown Los Angeles,  a different world entirely. Nothing prepares you for the reality of being there in person — the immediacy, the weight, the humanity.

Rows of tents stretch across entire blocks, forming makeshift neighborhoods a home of their own.  Sitting outside their shelters talking, repairing belongings, trying maybe to find a moment of calm in a place that rarely offers it. Some greeted me with nods or small smiles. Others were deep in their own thoughts or navigating struggles that were plainly visible. Amid the noise of traffic and city life, there was a surprising quiet, a kind of stillness if there is such a thing. 

What struck me most was how close all of this sits to the rest of Los Angeles. A few minutes’ walk are new luxury apartments, restaurants, and high-rise offices. The divide isn’t miles — it’s feet. That contrast alone is a story.

But there is no ignoring the suffering. Mental-health challenges, addiction, untreated illness, lost jobs, broken systems — each person has a story that brought them here and there. Many want help but have been failed by the long, complicated maze of services and waiting lists. Skid Row isn’t the result of individual choices alone; it’s the result of decades of policy decisions, economic pressures, and the widening cracks that people fall through.

Walking- I felt a mix of sadness and clarity if only I could help. It’s easy to look at homelessness from a distance and form quick opinions. It’s harder — and more important — to see the people behind it. My walks on Skid Row didn’t give me all the answers, but it did give me a deeper understanding: these are human beings trying to survive in conditions none of us would want to face.

We often talk about homelessness in numbers, but the truth is much simpler and more urgent: every person on Skid Row is someone who once had hopes and plans.  As a painter, I’ve spent years trying to capture emotion — in the bend of light, in the turbulence of color on Plexi-glass.  Some faces reminded me of portraits I’ve painted: expressions layered with exhaustion, resilience, and something deeper that no photograph can quite hold. I held photographs which are depicted here in my work.   Where chaos and color collide, a habit followed me through Skid Row. I found myself seeing not just tents but composition; not just noise but rhythm; not just hardship but stories. I left with a strange certainty that what I saw would eventually find its way into my work — perhaps in a portrait, perhaps in an abstract — because the experience changed the way I see people, and the way I see color.