How cool to have a harpist playing along with projections (a three-image cycle) of my installations!

I wasn’t able to attend the Place/Settings opening at the Cabarrus Arts Council Galleries in Concord, North Carolina, but fellow artist and exhibit co-curator Connie Norman did, and she took this photo for me.

I wish I could’ve been there! North Carolina was my home for a few years in the late ’80s and early ’90s when Fred served as a C-130 pilot in the USMC at Cherry Point. We bought our first house there, and I would sit at the kitchen table to paint while Michaela painted in her high chair beside me (yes, I gave my toddler a paintbrush!). It was in that home that I started making coiled vessels, and it was in that home that I learned how to prepare for hurricanes on my own while Fred flew missions to other parts of the world. I planted my first garden there and discovered the best way to kill snakes is to chop off their heads with a hard whack of a garden hoe. I learned to love Carolina BBQ and say “y’all.”

A part of me will always be in the Tar Heel state, so in a way having my art there was a bit of a homecoming.