DETAIL A Crack in the Wall 48" x 96", acrylic, 1990 When I was a kid, we had mice problems in our house. We would place dozens of mouse traps at strategic places inside the house. Often, at night, we would be awakened by the noise of a trap going off, sometimes several. My mother would stuff the dead mice in empty glass jars and get rid of them on garbage day. She would squeeze up to a dozen of them in a single jar. Years later, my mother unknowingly bought a loaf of bread infested with ants. The ants immediately relocated to our chimney giving us problems for the next couple of years. Fortunately we moved to another house shortly after. Of course, the painting is not simply a representation of childhood memories, it goes much deeper than that. The intrusion symbolizes a traumatic experience in one's life and the effect it has on the mind.