Me during the talk, I guess I was thinking about how to answer a question. That's Ribs of Disaster Curving Their Assertion Among the Tentative Haunters behind my head. The title is from a line in Adrienne Rich's poem, Diving into the Wreck.

Thanks to all the preparatory work I did with Connie from Pivitol Presentation, I was ready for my first artist's talk. And I had fun! Afterwards, my brain wouldn't shut off, all the things I wanted to keep saying, wished I had remembered to say. Next time!

I was so surprised how small Creation [of Melancholy Fate} by Supreme Being looked on that wall. I need and desperately desire a larger studio. One with heat! If you hear of anything for around $1/sq foot please do tell!

I spoke about how I create my work:
I take underwater photos of figures that are out of the water or partially submerged. Using images that a camera, not the naked eye, can see alters my stereotypical thinking, my ways of seeing, my visual interpretation of what I’m looking at. I want to communicate the movement of sound waves, and of looking underwater, glimpsing, having a secret, being given an extraordinarily generous amount of time to hear, observe and think beneath the surface, from an altered reference. Photography enables this. They are my photographs, and I am the one who alters them before I start to paint from them, too. This intense preparatory work is what Gilles Deleuze and Francis Bacon might have been talking about when they referred to "the painting before the painting."

I love the way the paintings look together! They did a great job hanging them! A need so great and deep it can never be swallowed. And the vacuum cleaner swallows its bag, Ribs...

I also was able to perform a story when I spoke about what's fun about what I do:
I had the painting A need so great and deep it can never be swallowed up in my studio for 2 months. A woman, I now know, but at the time she was a random studio visitor. She came bounding back into my studio the second month pulling her friend in tow. “see! This is the painting I was telling you about!” Then she heaved a great big sigh, (demonstrate with my body) That’s what’s fun about what I do, that’s what inspires me. Being able to connect with people and affect people. That’s why I do what I do.

My youngest daughter was fantastic, taking all the photos and even shooting some video of me! I so appreciated her participation!

And my friend Pauline Bowie came with friends to offer support and encouragement and that was such a great relief! I couldn't have been happier to see her.

This is the best shot we got, But you can still get the feel for how it looks from the street at night, so vibrant and glistening and crisp blue!

The show will be up through June at the Lynnwood Convention Center http://www.lynnwoodcc.com/. The facility is beautiful and Artech hung the show and did a gorgeous job. The other participating artists are:

Jean Bradbury, http://www.jeanbradbury.com/,

Briana Knight, http://www.knightvisions.com/

K Robinson, http://krobinsonstudio.com/ and

Karen Simonson http://www.fosterwhite.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=29489 and all their work is worth seeing. I highly recommend it! Its curated by

Fred Wong, who published The Complete Calligrapher.