In Memory of Dead Friends is the first in the Series of Wheel and Vessel paintings I did at the start of my professional career. As such, it was the first in which I established a personal identity and individuality based on my past. Here, a bowl sits precariously juxtaposed with a car tire. As a container and a circle, respectively, these symbols simply ask the question, “Can life exist in the face of speed?” Numerous other symbols elaborate on the central theme, but it may be interesting to note that the vase in the upper right appeared in my two previous paintings and came to symbolize my parents, or wealth, here resting on a book about migration, but boxed off from the rest of the action.