Ten Sentences

Another morning in my memoir class at MECA, Claude assigned this free write:

In one minute, write the story of your life in ten sentences. Begin.

1. I am in my crib hugging my pale yellow blanket.

2. I think that it is the skirt of a beautiful woman

3. My whole body is yearning for my mother.

4. My grandmother gives me a piece of bacon which I tie to a string to take down to the mussel bed to go crabbing.

5. I go to sleep in my bunk bed listening to the foghorn - there are 12 seconds between each blow.

6. When I kiss my boyfriend Tony and he kisses me, I feel the same yearning that I had in my crib for my mother.

7. I become so obsessed with this yearning that I have 5 babies in 9 years.

8. I have a couple of breakdowns and rediscover that I love to draw.

9. My daughter becomes very ill and it becomes difficult to do my art for 14 years.

10. My barn burns down and I lose 30 years of art, so I decide to go back to school.

Surrendering Self I, 1991

charcoal on Rives BFK, 22" x 30"

collection Duane Paluska, ICON Gallery, Brunswick, ME

Surrendering Self I (in progress)


Double One, 1997

charcoal On Rives BFK, 22" x 30"

collection the artist

Catalpa, 1990
charcoal on Rives BFK, 22" x 30"

collection Pat Hardy

Catalpa, detail

Catalpa, detail