Allen C. Topolski considers himself the foremost expert on himself and the most qualified person for the task of distilling the ideas inside his head; Topolski attended Bucknell University and Penn State where he learned several ways of doing this. He has been a Professor at the University of Rochester for over twenty years where he attempts to teach others their own ways.
Abandoned collieries and vacated factories of central Pennsylvania formed part of the environment of Topolski’s youth – explorations there are unequivocally linked to his art production. Augmented by the exaggeration and distortion that accompanies memory, the routine reiterations of the ‘fact’ that “those days” were better than “these” results in an ingrained longing for the past and an unwilling acceptance of the present as well as the inevitable. This, in turn, fosters a disconcerting susceptibility to nostalgia and Topolski finds himself coveting the decayed, feigning the familiar and writing about himself in the third person.