Sitting on Top of the World—

Sitting on Top of the World—

“So I was sittin on top of the world just laughing with my feet hangin down….” This line from my first book, You May Plow Here: The Narrative of Sara Brooks (Norton, 1986), began cycling through my mind when I drove over Independence Pass on my way home from...
The Fundamental Note

The Fundamental Note

W.W. Norton published my first book, You May Plow Here: The Narrative of Sara Brooks. The Fundamental Note published my second book, Dancing Girl: Themes and Improvisations in a Greek Village Setting. I first came across the term “fundamental note” in the late 80s. A...
A Sustaining Activity

A Sustaining Activity

This is the painting I mentioned in my previous post. Why make them wait to see it, I asked myself. So here it is. To me the piece looks like a finger-painting a kindergartener might have made, but I was 44, and I applied tempera paint with a brush. Naive though it...
Dances in Two Worlds

Dances in Two Worlds

You might wonder what this 2-sided found-object wooden totem has to do with the story I have to tell. I met the artist, Michael Mrowka, in a Jungian painting group where I first began to paint in 1988. I purchased the sculpture to celebrate the publication of my...
Genuine Encounters: Welcome

Genuine Encounters: Welcome

I first came across the term “genuine encounter” in Ramona Gault’s review of my second book, Dancing Girl: Themes and Improvisations in a Greek Village Setting (1991). The book contains warm, spirited accounts by and about the people of Elika, gossip...