I am tapped out of interesting things to say but I am determined to flesh out this website even if I have to stay up till 2 a.m. eating coffee beans. I grew up watching everyone else paint. My sisters are very talented individuals. One is an excellent pianist, albeit an angry one (if the song is gentle and romantic, she'll turn it into a war tune). I say this with love, of course. (Ok, ok, she's really gifted and plays with passionate fervor and has the hands of a virtuoso, and if I could play a third as well as she can then that's what I would be doing. I wouldn't even know how to speak. I would just play. All day). The other is an excellent painter whose delicate dexterity reflects in her handwriting and quality of line. They could paint and they painted well. And I didn't know what the heck I was doing (several sources can attest to this), until the Fall of 2004, when I signed up for Art 101.

I agonized over the first couple of assignments, one of which was to paint a chair in black and white. It took me 4 hours and I didn't even paint the entire chair. I copped out and painted a portion of the chair, but the composition, unintentionally, was interesting to the class. If only they knew I had spent 4 hours on an abstracted chair.

I began to regret signing up for the class. I hadn't been in an art class since the 8th grade, and I was always terrible at "scumbling" and painting. I made a mask out of clay and then the iridescent paints that my teacher had laid out for us got the better of me. "Oh, we can still save it," was her reaction.

Oh, but then something happened in the upcoming weeks. We were assigned to paint a 1" by 1" portion of a postcard we liked. I picked the one where Adam is touching God's hand. I didn't even really like God at the time, much less want to paint him, but I was drawn to it, and that forced me to learn how to paint. There was no apprehension, just a determination to get it done. It forced me to really see, as in translate what I was looking at into something that I could recount. So I had to look at the planes of colors, the values of the paint that meshed together in a way to create volume.

So where am I now? I don't know. Being inspired and moved is a challenge. I want to tell a story, but I feel right now is not the time because I can't think of one. I want to imbue my paintings with meaning. Maybe I am just not ready or have yet to develop my own language and way of articulating form. Time will tell.