Anita Baker

Perhaps grief is not about empty, but full. The full breath of life that includes death. The completeness, the cycles, the depth, the richness, the process, the continuity and the treasure of the moment that is gone the second you are aware of it.

Short stories are my favorite art form. A good one is compact and complete, a telling little slice of life, capturing a moment in time that - for the character - defines her, changes her, is the tipping point for all that will follow.

The thrill of a photo-realist painter is if you get really close to the painting, it looks just like a photograph. Whereas in my case, if you get close to my paintings, they totally fall apart - so I'm about as far from a photo-realist as it gets.