My Dad died in 2006 after much suffering. Right after I returned to Houston, a blue jay flew into my kitchen window. The impact broke his neck. A few weeks later I looked in the flower bed and found his skull and began sketching. As I was trimming some bushes another day, I found his wing--a bone with the feathers still attached. More sketching. More studying. More searching.

One day, almost four years later, a cardinal flew into my friend's window while I was visiting. She put it in a baggie for me and I brought it home and sat it on a piece of equipment in the backyard. Two days later I was called away to my Mom's bedside. As I waited on the hospice screened porch, a female cardinal came to visit me. Being from Illinois whose state bird is a cardinal, she was such a comfort. Sadly, my Mom died 10 days after my arrival. When I got back to Houston, I took the dead cardinal and buried it in my flower bed. A few weeks later, I pulled out the skull and skeleton and began again to draw.

It is now 2011 and I have been investigating my new place in the world. After years of being "on call" for my parents, I have had to figure out what my role is now. I have included a new character in my work--Sandhill Psychopomp and am working on incorporating imagery from Big Bend National Park, a place I go to escape my life, and maps.

I am still sketching, studying, searching. I continue to work in the medium of printmaking.