That Binney and Smith box of 64 Crayolas with a built in sharpener was the start of it, a hypnotic lure, each one sampled with care and analysis, shading, rudimentary cross hatching, layering of colors. My mother made me color with the old man that visited the restaurant, how I hated him handling my magic sticks with no regard for their power, marring my coloring book with his stupid choices. I tried to give him the images I didn’t much like but really, I liked them all. He wore out my points, he tried to peel back the paper, if anyone was going to do that it would have to be me, oh my sacred crayons. So I painted a cloth for a display and the brush didn’t work very well, only the hands seemed to get the paint where it needed to be. But when I was done and hung the cloth up to dry, there were the hands, the colors and I didn’t want to wash them. Staring at them I was thinking, I didn’t even know what paints I would choose when I started. And then I wondered, who conjures the color, was it me or that 8 year old girl with the 64 Crayolas?

Who conjures your colors, where do they come from in your work, not the stuff that has to get done, I’m talking about the good inspired work?