We appreciate the artists’ permission to reproduce this image for the purposes of this project. All images are copyrighted and may not be reproduced from this site for any purposes without explicit permission of the artists. All copyrights remain with the artists.
Mars1
© 2004 Siege
ripe 
One day in July of 1998 I was walking up the path. The tomatoes were getting ripe. They were like red beacons in a lighthouse- even though it was a sunny summer day.
About this time I had gotten my hands on an amazing and impossibly thick article by my friend Jim’s Dad. Jim Tillman, famous as the Bass Player of the U-Men and Love Battery, is one of my oldest & closest friends. Mister Tillman, Jim’s Dad, was a meteorologist for NASA. He was involved heavily in the Viking Project in 1975. Unaware at the time, Jim & I were out riding bicycles up and down the street. But years and years later later the technical paper by him concerning the atmospheric presssure on Mars found its way into my possesion. Even as an adult I was totally lost by the second sentence. But I was taken with the idea, and fascinated by the graphs.
And here I stopped on a quiet afternoon in my garden.– –Tomatoes. – Mars. – Mars.–Tomatoes.• Hmmm. I started on the first of six paintings.