Summer of 1996. On a summer afternoon, while strolling down St.Mark's Place, towards First Avenue, I picked up a cassette tape from a street vendor. What brought the cassette to my attention was the cover photo that reminded me of the darkly lit Spanish portraits that I was often encountering at the Met and the Frick etc. Around this time, I was buying cheap cassettes and playing them on my new secondhand audio set(CoralSpeakers, RadioShackAmp etc.) while painting at this huge, well lit space that I was temporarily occupying. (PS: My apologies to the gentle artists who allowed me the use of the space and then regretted for a good reason! I hope to make it all up to you♡) The cassette was priced at 4 dollars, which was way beyond the norm. A recreation of the vendor's table. But the vendor looked sincere, so I didn't haggle. ...