Even though I am ex-military from a decidedly military family I am nobody's hawk.  I am more a humming bird.  A brawl with a pro-war bodybuilder, a great deal angrier after facing off with anti-war activists than I after facing off against the flashing lights of a fire engine used to break up our anti-war blockades, persuaded me it was time to work for peace another way.  A friend defected, but I am also no expatriate. So, in a studio behind a commercial laundrymat in the city's Western Addition, on a homebuilt stationary easel, beneath a sole skylight with some artificial light I began the diptych The Origin Of Species as a meditation on peace.  The intention (and express need, as dictated by drying times) throughout was to rotate the two squares beside one another to create as many unique rectangular combinations as possible. While in these configurations they would be layered with lens shaped branching strings of my simplicity series so arranged as to not cross themselves in a layer, but also so that they covered a maximum of available white (the original color of the ground.)  When the current lens system made from a high-key color could not be continued without that color crossing itself, I would "rotate" the paintings so that their relative aspects changed and begin a new layer of a different high-key color.  Then I began to add layers of blues.  Lots of layers of blues.  As I created these rhythmic shapes using only the transparent, or nearly transparent colors, over the high key base layers, a variety of second and third order physical structures began to visually manifest and disappear.  These invariably happened at widely separated times and in widely separated regions of the Diptych.  These structures ranged from simple organic shapes recognizable in the wide variety of sea-life to much more complex fragments such as double strands of helical structures resembling associating DNA. This was achieving the desired effect, that of experimentally demonstrating the evolution of organic form in the ocean, cradle of life.  After working on the painting for some months, I acquired a video camera with time-lapse capability and began a sporadic record of its development. The footage was adapted into a video piece for dvd and internet distribution entitled "2 Years B 4 The Easel."  Ultimately the painting took slightly less than two years to complete.  It has shown once at a Design Center of San Francisco during a gala celebrating the achievements of Rene di Rosa.  The intention of the piece will be fully realized when each rectangular configuration is digitally printed to scale for an interconnected installation in an auditorium sized space.  Peace out, wolf.