Images: Between the Lines (1997)

When Stan was nine, a group of boys threw stones at him, screaming that he had killed Christ. They had been taught to hate Jews. He cried, then grew angry. He wanted to fight back.

Fear runs through history — real or imagined, it leads to anger, then hate, then aggression. Without love and acceptance, indifference and greed take hold, and prejudice follows.

Images: Between the Lines grew from that understanding — beginning as a memoir of his World War II experiences and his growing awareness of the Holocaust. Lines were everywhere: on the page, between armies, around prisons, keeping everyone in order. Writing home to his parents during the war, he remembered everything he couldn't bring himself to tell them. The truth lived between the lines. After seeing Goya's Disasters of War at the Met, he felt compelled to make fifteen linocut prints, and words, images, and text came together into a book.

He self-publishes to control the process — the type, the paper, the rhythm of the whole. He cuts into dark linoleum to bring out light. That movement, from darkness toward light, is his metaphor for hope.