August, 1980

Ira:     The Muses are loosely patterned on Botticelli's muses from his "Primavera".  Lust rules this hell-like tableau, the graces are bound in a constrained dance, while lust ravishes a woman.  At the back, of the canvas a small group led by a prophet, turns away, moving toward the light.  Lust is blind to anything but its own needs.

Corliss:     We live in a world full of lust.  In this vision the muses dance, bound by their greed, envy and want.   This painting started in a subleased loft in New York City, during the summer of 1979,  and was completed the following summer in upstate New York, at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram, where we had lived the winter. Our life was returning to a more spiritual existence.