MINNETONKA, Minn. (AP) – New York artist Scott LoBaido is a man with a mission. He’s out to paint an American flag on one roof in each of the 50 states.

LoBaido started in February with a house in North Carolina. He has painted waving flags on roofs of houses and businesses from Florida to Hawaii. Minnesota was number 24. He expects to finish in Virginia in December.

He left his Minnesota mark this week on the roof of Alexa and Elena Popa in Minnetonka.

“With all the ugliness going on in the world, with all the anti-Americanism going on in the world, it just hit me,” LoBaido, 41, said of his Flags Across America project. “I want to be remembered as a great American artist. This is the passion that moves me.”

LoBaido says he survives on donations – money, paint, supplies, lodging, gas and food. He says he hasn’t thought about how he’d like people to interpret his rooftop work.

When LoBaido arrived in Minnesota, his first step was to find a roof that would look good with a flag on it was owned by someone who would go for the idea.

LoBaido said he was driving around looking in his red, white and blue Suburban when Alexa Popa pulled him over.

“He jumps out of his car and he says, I love your car!”‘ LoBaido said.

Popa, 57, who came to the U.S. in 1985 from Romania and became a citizen eight years later, has his own love affair with the American flag.

“I am crazy man to love America,” Popa said.

“This is what it’s all about,” LoBaido said. “This man from Romania came here to seek out a good life.”

The rooftop project is the latest undertaking for LoBaido, who has drawn notice – and not always the best kind – back East. His style has been called “Angry American,” and he’s not afraid to wear his conservatism on his sleeve or paint it on canvas.

One of his paintings done after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks depicts President Bush, on horseback, holding up the severed head of Osama bin Laden. Another work shows a red, white and blue anvil falling on Saddam Hussein. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also has been a favorite target.

But LoBaido says his 50-state flag project is about patriotism, not politics.

“Patriotism is always questioned,” he said. “I emphasize that what I’m doing is not bang-the-drums-of-war’ patriotism. Patriotism and the American flag have been entangled with the political realm, and I want to separate that.”

“I want them to see it as artwork,” he said. “The American flag is the most recognized piece of art in the world. Mount Rushmore is the greatest form of creative patriotism. This is my Mount Rushmore.”