Not everyone would expect that the first paintings I did after my experience at Giverny would be a series of boxing paintings, but it was. 

The other artist’s left the residency in September. I received permission to stay until the end of November. The gardens were closed and, in fact, the tractors had already dug up the flower beds, the Japanese bridge was completely dismantled in order to be rebuilt, much of the gift shop had been packed up and put away in the artist’s apartments, and the weather turned a bleak gray, like a New England rainy fall day. Worst of all, the sun set earlier and earlier each day.

I had not used the TV in my apartment all summer. But now with very few people around, I turned to it for company. One night I was watching a boxing match and one of the fighters sustained a bad cut over his eye. The cut appeared magenta on the screen. His eyes were a vibrant green, his face pink, his 4 o’clock shadow had a blue tinge to it. In essence, it looked like an Impressionist painting.

When I returned to the States I called Teddy Atlas and asked if I could watch him train his new fighters (this was after his break from Cus d’Amato as Mike Tyson’s trainer.) One of his fighters had a fight coming up in Atlantic City and he thought I should photograph that.

Any other time I had been ringside, I was behind the cameraman, I felt invisible. Now I was ringside with professional photographers on either side of me. I felt like a fraud.

I settled into my spot, and the photographer next to me admonished me to keep my glasses on just incase there was blood flying. One needed to be cautious because of AIDS.

At first I shot so many pictures it could have been a movie. But then I had a moment where time stood still. I was looking through the viewfinder, and it felt as though I had all the time in the world to compose my shot.

Teddy also invited me to a night of heavy weight fighters at Madison Square Garden. I would only be able to be ringside for the undercard, as most of the big papers were covering these fights. Teddy had one stipulation, that his daughter Nicole would be my assistant for the evening. I think she was 12 at the time. She had been attending fights since she was in utero. Nothing escaped her eye. When Hollyfield entered the ring, she said that she thought there was something wrong, that he must be sick with the flu or something. His skin didn’t look right. Sure enough, he lost that night.

When I returned to my studio, I knew what I was looking for in these images. I wanted my paintings to show the intimacy in the ring, the close relationship between not only the fighter and his trainer, but also between the fighter and his opponent.