Thread: non-static variable, addActionListener()

Hi all ive been having a bita trouble adding an action listener to one of my menu items, the compiler gives me the following error . .
non-static variable this cannot be referenced from a static context
exitItem.addActionListener(this);
1 error


heres a snippet of my code that should give some detail to the program . .

public class Project implements GLEventListener, ActionListener {
 
    static JMenuItem exitItem;
    static private Animator animator;
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("Learn TCP/ IP");
        GLCanvas canvas = new GLCanvas();
 
        canvas.addGLEventListener(new Project());
        frame.add(canvas);
        frame.setSize(640, 480);
        animator = new Animator(canvas);
        frame.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
 
            @Override
            public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
                // Run this on another thread than the AWT event queue to
                // make sure the call to Animator.stop() completes before
                // exiting
                new Thread(new Runnable() {
 
                    public void run() {
                        animator.stop();
                        System.exit(0);
                    }
                }).start();
            }
        });
 
        JMenuBar titleMenu = new JMenuBar();
        JMenu fileMenu = new JMenu("File");
 
 
        exitItem = new JMenuItem("Exit");
        exitItem.addActionListener(this); // ERROR ON THIS LINE
        fileMenu.add(exitItem);
 
        titleMenu.add(fileMenu);
 
 
 
        frame.setJMenuBar(titleMenu);
 
        // Center frame
        frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        frame.setVisible(true);
        animator.start();
    }

Anyone got any ideas?? thanks in advance