Just as I started working on this painting, my mother broke her hip. I painted sometimes no more than a few minutes a day (in order to stay connected to it) as I spent the next month driving back and forth from Patagonia to Tucson to visit her in the hospital. I had just moved into my new a studio (near a hidden pond) which was in an above ground basement to a two storied house with porches that hung over my windows. It was very dark inside and whenever I walked out into the light of day I had the feeling I was walking out of a movie theater. On the movie screen in the painting is the pond which spills into the audience. The central figure is the Muse of Painting. She holds a frog, who represents the secret that sustained me during this difficult time-- the fact that I could swim every day before the drive.
