So I’ll spell it out: John Perry died a year ago this month.. John was a terrible critic (“Looks done to me!”) but a wonderful support (“Time to go upstairs; what should I read today?”) For in fact, a painter’s mind is often a burden: left to its own devices, it drifts into dismal distractions, hoping perhaps to escape the risky business of creation. (“isn’t it time to shop for dinner?” “Did I remember to take out the garbage?”) And John’s reading aloud of favorite stories or new fiction while I worked kept my anxious mind away from the terrors of paint application. There is a story about the French writer Colette, whose husband was said to lock her in her room, so that production of the wherewithal needed to buy groceries could proceed on schedule. (And then there was Virginia Woolf’s hypothetical Sister of Shakespeare who had no room!) This painter has been very lucky. She plans to take advantage of the many privileges left to her and aspires to keep the easel—and this blog—supplied with nourishment for eyes and mind. John’s spirit still fills the studio. The painter hopes to enlist his ghost to fire up her brushes.

"...about the corners of a man,/ Who sits thinking in the corners of a room...", 19 x 19 inches, oil on canvas, ©2005-2017