My Rough Draft for “Starry, Starry Playground” is Done!

When I started this project, it seemed easy enough: write a goofy story, draw a couple pictures and there you have it -- a children's book. Well three months on and I have just finished the rough draft of my book called “Starry, Starry Playground.” The story is done, the rough sketches make me smile, getting the tone right was a challenge since this IS a book about art, creativity and mental illness.

In the end I decided to focus on something many of my friends and I know all too well: depression. In the book I call it a dangerous sadness since loneliness is a dreadful disease. Umm. did I mention this is also a book about joy?

The tone I meant was charming, funny -- a kind of celebration of people who are just different. Diva is taking a psychology class in college and is upset that mental illness in the text book is treated so unsympathetically. It is a list of damage. My book is a list of possibilities.

To get to this point meant I was a monk hiding away studying things I never imagined I would be studying. Just today I picked up a plush toy as the best model for Tippy the Cow. It has great body language as it sits and a fantastic hoody. Yes, a grown man playing with teddy bears and such -- or Tippy Cows. But they are models who I don't have to pay and will assume any position and hold it patiently as I sketch and paint them.

I decided not to show you my whole rough draft right now. I was working on the final sketches for my paintings until 2 AM this morning (no, I’m not obsessed) and then I will attempt the finished watercolors. When I am happy with each of them in turn I will show you the doodle I scrawled out when I had the idea, the final sketch and the finished work.

Here is a list of what I have read and watched in the last three months as research:

I bought or made toys so I can see how plush toys sit and flop about. It was kind of a casting call in a toy store. I got Nicole the Tree Frog and Priv the Tiger at Savers for a couple of bucks. Being tall, I also helped a lady by getting to plush sea turtles off the top shelf. I got Tami the Dolphin at Dollar Tree. In Toys-R-Us I found Hockney the Hedgehog for about five buck -- he makes funny noises when you squeeze him -- just like me. I saw a scanner for price checking. It didn’t scan so I pushed a button which I thought was for price checking. Nope.

I noticed too late that it was for calling for assistance. Over the loudspeaker: “Customer needs help in plush toys.” I ducked behind the hot wheels, jogged passed Hello Kitty and checked the hell out before I pushed any other damn buttons. This casting of characters is hard -- but now they sit on my table. I have live -- er plush models to patiently assume the position and let me draw them for hours on end.

I could not find a blonde, blue-eye squirrel for Jill or the right cow for Tippy (until today!) so I had to make them. But that’s another article.



Animal Reference (Yep, method drawing. Know the hedgehog -- be the hedgehog):

Hedgehogs by Pat Morris (Everything you want to know about that varmint and much more. Diva‘s mother adores hedgehogs so I am putting one in the book for her -- but she tells me that they are the worst pets in the world.)

Squirrel: The Animal Answer Guide by Richard W. Thorington Jr. and Katie Ferrell

Squirrel by Jessica Holm

(Jill the Squirrel will be a real squirrel -- that wears a pageboy hat and stripes.)

A Cat in the Family (A Complete Authoritative Guide) by Uschi Birr

The Natural Cat (Understanding Your Cats Needs and Instincts) by Helga Hofmann, Ph. D.

Beautiful Cats by Uschi Birr

(Pete is a real cat of my friend Jeanne. I want Pete to move and act like a real cat. I have had many dogs in my life but don’t know cats as well so I need to study them. I love the fluid grace of cats and am already fascinated. Diva has own cats and loves them so.)

My Puppy is Born by Joanna Cole

I have also visited people with dogs or cats and nip into pets stores to sketch those pets from life. I have been doing a lot of gesture drawings of people -- which are turning out very well. I hope to get the same simplicity and grace in my animal drawings.


Art Reference:

I hope to use Van Gogh’s art and Impressionism as a stage for my plush drama so I need the images to study (I wrote that about a month ago -- little did I know then that the paintings would find their way into my book and become a child‘s playground):

Impressionisms:

The International Movement 1890-1920 (Great very rare works from all over the world)

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

Vincent by himself edited by Bruce Bernard

The Treasures of Vincent Van Gogh by Cornelia Homburg (Thank you again, Tom -- It is a gift that I uses a lot.)

Sargent Portrait Drawings and
John Singer Sargent both by Trevor Fairbrother

100 Masterpieces of Art by Martina Vaizey

The DK Art School: Watercolor Still Life (in Association with the Royal Academy of Arts) by Elizabeth Jane Lloyd Pub by Dorling Kindersley 1994 Great technical information on paint, paper and brushes.

Classical Life Drawing Studio (Lessons and Teaching in the Art of Figure Drawing) by James Lancel McElhinney (Sterling 2010)

Picasso and The Human Comedy (a Suite of 180 Drawings) by Michel Lewis (Modern Library Paperbacks - Random House 1954) I love the way Picasso drew.)

Picasso’s Picassos by David Douglas Duncan (Ballintine Books New York 1968) The painting in Picasso’s own collection.

Picasso (from the Musee Picasso, Paris) by Martian Friedman (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 1980)

Van Gogh by Gerald E. Finley (Tudor Press Company New York 1966)

Seurat by Pierre Courthion (Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York 1988)

Degas (Impressions of a Great Master) by Gerhard Gruitrooy (Todtri Productions Limited, New York 1994)

Step by Step Art School: Nudes by Jack Buchan and Jonathan Baker (Hamlyn, London 1994)

Matisse by Jean Selz (Crown, New York 1969)

Magritte by Daniel Abadie (Distributed Art Publisher, Inc. New York, 2003)

Eyewitness Art: Monet by Jude Welton (Dorling Kindersley Inc., New York, 1992) Great information on Monet’s methods of painting, colors he used, pallet, brushstrokes -- the works.)

Eyewitness Art: Van Gogh by Bruce Bernard (Dorling Kindersley Inc., New York, 1992)

Monet Water Lillies by Charles F. Stuckley (Park Lane -- Random House, New York, 1988)

Painting the Impressionist Landscape ( Lessons in Interpreting Light and Color) by Lois Griffel (Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1994) A wonderful instructions on how the impressionist worked.

Paint with the Impressionist (A Step-by-step Guide to Their Methods and Materials for Today’s Artists) by Jonathan Stephenson ( Thames and Hudson New York 2010) Showing the methods of Van Gogh, Monet, Manet and Degas.

Chinese Watercolor Techniques (Painting Animals) by Lian Quan Zhen (Northen Lights Books, Cincinnati, 2005)



Great Picture Books:

You may know many of the books I have listed but the works by Patrick McDonnell are recent and brilliant. Hug is charming and South tells the story without dialogue. I love McDonnell’s drawings that remind me of Chinese ink drawing.

Art by Partick McDonnell

Just Like Heaven by Partick McDonnell

Hug by Partick McDonnell

South by Partick McDonnell

Wag by Partick McDonnell

The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne with the original charming drawings by Ernest H. Shepard

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll with drawings by John Tenniel

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, Illustrations by David Jorgensen as read by Meryl Streep

The Inferno by Dante, illustrations by Dore (Well, I read it as a kid -- or looked at the pictures -- but I was an odd kid.)


Poetry:

I hope to have a poetic tilt to the work and have been listening to the artists performing their own works on CDs.

T.S. Eliot The Love song of J. Alfred Profrock, The Wasteland, Quartets, Practical Cats (Yes, he wrote a children’s book)

The Voice of the Poet: Sylvia Plath Random House Audio

Dylan Thomas reads “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”
Sylvia Plath reads her own poems

The Caedmon Poetry Collection (A Century of Poets Reading their own Work)

Bob Dylan The Witmark Demos 1962-1964 (Dylan’s original demos -- hear Dylan becoming himself.)

So, you were expecting Dr. Suess? It may seem like a odd and cheerful lot for picture book inspiration. But theses are the ones I love. To listen to a poet speak their own work is like hearing a composer play their compositions. Just looking at it on the page won’t cut it.


Life Drawing and Art Techniques:

Yoga for Dummies (Priv the Tiger is from India and uses Yoga to relax)

The New York City Ballet Workout by Palm Pictures
Understanding Ballet by John Gregory

Body Parts (a practical guide for artists) by Simon Jennings

The Figure in Watercolor: Simple, Fast and Focused by Mel Stabin

Chinese Brush Animals by Lucy Wang


DVDs and Videos:

Great Courses: A History of European Art taught by Professor William Kloss, Independent Art Historian The Smithsonian Associates, Smithsonian Institute 48 lectures, each 30 minutes long. (The Teaching Company, 2005) A college course, Kloss clearly enjoys his work -- I wish more college professors were as fun.

Great Courses: Museum Masterpiece - The Louvre, taught by Professor Richard Brettell, University of Texas at Dallas, 12 lectures, each 30 minutes long. (The Teaching Company, 2006)
Great Courses: Museum Masterpiece - The National Gallery, London, taught by Professor Catherine B. Scallen, Case Western Reserve University, 24 lectures, each 30 minutes long. (The Teaching Company, 2009)

Vermeer: Master of Light -- narrated by Meryl Streep Microcinema 2001. Very detailed explanations of how he painted -- fascinating.

Magritte: An Attempt at the Impossible. DVD by Kultur International Films. Magritte was once asked what was behind his paintings, “The wall,” he cracked. Unfortunately the makers of this film don’t get jokes. A very serious art film about a man who spent his life making fun of serious art.

Vincent, a film by Paul Cox. Docudrama DVD 2005. Using Van Gogh’s letters and paintings Cox takes us on a life’s journey and obsession. The document on Cox is also amazing. I admit that I felt a kinship with Cox, So many of his statements hit home, “Loneliness is a dreadful disease,” he says and it feels like the theme of my own book.

Van Gogh, Brush with Genius. A Camera Lucida Production,. Imagine DVD 2010. Having Van Gogh’s ghost show up to narrate the film is pretty funny, having him introduce the director as if they hang out at the bars nightly is jaw dropping. That said, the images shot with an Imax camera are amazing. The film makers were allowed unprecedented access to glide their lens inches from the paintings to pick up incredible detail. Also wonderful were scenes showing Vincent's paintings that fade into the present day location where Van Gogh himself stood -- unlike the cheesy narration, I did feel a chill of a ghost passing by at moments like that.

Van Gogh’s Van Goghs, directed byJackson Frost, Home Vision Theater/ WETA Washington 1999

Portraits in Watercolor (a complete video course) by James Kirk

The Path in Autumn

Last week Diva took me to Quarry Hill Nature Center. We often go there when we are down: the butterfly garden, the birds fluttering about, the water shimmering on the pond. It is a Manet painting come to life. It is like that place in my head I go to when I want to create.

We went somewhere different this time. A place I hadn’t been since I was a child, as part of a class trip, and had since forgotten that it even existed: an abandon grave yard hidden in one corner of the nature reserve. At first it didn’t look like a cemetery. It looked like an ordinary field on the side of a hill. Reading the sign at the entrance, I realized over 2,000 bodies were under our feet.

Cemeteries have never affected me that much -- all my relatives chose cremation. Their ashes were scattered in the north woods of Minnesota. Knowing they are where they wanted to be gives me solace. There was no solace here. It just unnerved me and left me shaken.

I haven’t really written or drawn in a week because of it. So many feelings were flapping in my mind like a skull full of sparrows. I wanted to say something profound but there was just too much in my head. What was each person’s story? What was the life each had led until they were dumped in this field? If I had lived a hundred years ago -- would I have been committed to the state hospital and be lying in an unmarked grave right now -- right here? Would my life have amounted to no more than that? I was overwhelmed and numb.

In the end, I just decided to say what I felt and hoped that is enough. I felt the way a soldier who fought at Gettysburg must have felt visiting the cemetery of their departed comrades. After all, these were soldiers in a war -- a war for understanding and acceptance for people like Diva and I: the mentally ill.

That war is far from over. At my feet were thousands that died in a very bad place: a place they once called an insane asylum. We don’t call it that anymore. We want too forget that we ever treated humans that way. We did. Only fifty or so of their graves are even marked. This is my Gettysburg. This is hallowed ground.

Diva looked at me and whispered, “When I die, bury me here.”

I understood, perhaps for the first time in my life, we are soldiers too. And we are only part way up the hill.

Vincent




http://www.qhnc.org/about.html

Popping the Big Question to Diva

Yesterday, Diva received a gift card. It was a thank you for volunteering for Warmline (a hotline run by the local NAMI office to help people with mental illness). Did I just mention a gift card? Yep and that my friends could only mean one thing: we girls were goin’ shopping!

Hopping in the fab-mobile, we set out sights on Target. Her haul? A set of bed spreads and pillow covers (hot pink with big-ass white polka dots all over them) and a DVD set with four chick flicks -- including a heartwarming Christmas story with Linda Hamilton and Nazis. Needless to say, our next slumber party will rock! The administrator who mailed the gift card would be amazed, but send a gift card to a woman with adult attention disorder -- and this shit will happen. Girlie fun and mayhem will ensue.

As we sat munching at Taco Bell, I got my courage up and finally popped the question to Diva: would she please be my partner in blogging? This is a big step in any writer’s life. It wasn’t all about me anymore. It was all about Diva, as it should be. After all, if you are unfortunate enough to talk to me, I will find a way of turning the conversation to Diva like some Star Trek geek going on and on about Shatner. Kerry is my hero, and she doesn’t even have a starship -- yet. We just have an empire of dreams and that’s enough.

The fact that Diva has border line personality doesn’t mean she is on the boarder line of having a personality, it means she has an excess of it. She is the most beloved Minnesotan since Mary Richards. Diva is the show pony in my stable. And yes, I get the irony. Using the word “stable” in connection with either of us is damn funny.

The only other thing we had to come up with was her alias, Diva, for this blog. We had to make sure none of you freaks surfing the net in your underwear, sipping Mountain Dew, could start stalking her ass. That, from now on, is my job and my job alone.

Here are a few changes to make us better cartoons -- easier to digest for public unaccustomed to having strange people like us in their living room. Yes, Diva, I’ll wipe my feet and won’t touch their white walls. Here are the changes:


Strange Light: The True Adventures of Diva and Vincent.

This is the story of two underdog artist with mental illness, a romance with each other and with art.

I am Vincent, a writer trying to understand creativity and my own broken mind. Diva is a painter/photographer who vowed to get her college degree after surviving cancer in 2009. Together we make up the most beloved couple since Hitler and Goebbels. Welcome to our world and play nice.

The Dark Side of the Tune

I Wonder Who Could Be Writing This Song?

A few months ago, I went on my second NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) walk. Years ago when my friend started going, the local NAMI office could have held their meeting in a cafe. This year it was held in a vast gymnasium. It is good to see more people each year, eager to break the stigma attached to a condition that strikes one in four Americans in their lifetime. If you are one of them, you aren't crazy. You are human. And you are not alone. Think of Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Plath, Winston Churchill, Earnest Hemingway, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Van Gogh -- they had mental illness. They enriched our lives.

I know many people who are artists that are "mentally ill" but I can't tell you about them yet since I was told in confidence. The stigma is still there. It is becoming okay to tell the world almost anything about your private life -- anything... but that. Our bodies are out of the closet, but that door is still shut on our minds. People don't want to admit THAT -- not even to themselves.

That got me thinking about Syd Barrett. He created Pink Floyd -- wrote all the songs and was the lead guitarist. Early on in their career he was asked to leave the group (well okay, they just stopped picking him up for recording dates) because he developed Schizophrenia. It wasn't just hard on Syd, but for the rest of the group. To them it must have seemed like they were four Ringos trying to replace Paul McCartney and John Lennon in the Beatles. Syd had written all their hit singles and invented English Psychedelic music. What had the rest of the group done at that point? Watched in awe as he became a phenomenon and then in horror as he imploded.

"Thank you for m-m-m-making it clear that I'm not here... I wonder who could be writing this song?" Syd sniped in a song he wrote, "Jugband Blues," about Pink Floyd without him. After all, to him, his former mates were abandoning him (and any chance of continued success with the group).

Pink Floyd went on to become one of the most famous groups in history -- but they never really shook the ghost of Syd. The seminal Floyd albums: The Wall, Wish You Were Here and Dark Side of the Moon are about him. He was no longer leading the group, but yet he was still shaping the group's output. He had a profound effect on their direction and music (albums about madness) even after he had left. In a way, those albums are a family dealing with the loss of a cherished loved one -- a childhood friend lost to the world and him self.


“Jugband Blues”
By Syd Barrett

It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here

And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear

That I'm not here.

And I never knew the moon could be so big

And I never knew the moon could be so blue

And I'm grateful that you threw away my old shoes

And brought me here instead dressed in red

And I'm wondering who could be writing this song.

I don't care if the sun don't shine

And I don't care if nothing is mine

And I don't care if I'm nervous with you

I'll do my loving in the winter.

And the sea isn't green

And I love the queen

And what exactly is a dream?

And what exactly is a joke?



Video for Jugband Blues

Strange Flowers

I was watching a documentary about the rock group the Ramones. When he was a teenager Joey Ramones' mother had taken him to a psychiatrist. The doctor took her aside, after talking to Joey, and said, "Your son will never be a useful member of society." She knew the doctor was wrong. She knew that Joey was bright, curious and full of ideas. Joey had a lot to give the world. It is a better place because he was in it. Imagine how awful it would have been if he didn't have that one person in his life that understood him.

Feeling you are understood by someone can make all the difference. Mental illness creates a special bond between those that have it. We understand what the other is going through. We were all tossed into the dirt and stepped on. It rains on us more days than not. But we have made the decision that the world will not beat us. We can make that earth into a garden, even if they call us crazy. We grow when they tell us we will never be a useful member of society. They are wrong. We know they are.

These are my fellow travelers: Tippy, Nicole and Kerry. We are on a very long journey together. 

Nicole and Tippy 

First, Tippy -- an amazing songwriter from California. Tippy's support and encouragement helps me go on when I think, "Is this worth it? Am I really getting anywhere?" She lets me know that what I am doing is vital. More than that, she has sent me her writings on mental illness and creativity. She sets a standard for honesty and emotional eloquence that I will never surpass.

Nicole? Awwww, Nicole is our not-so-cowardly lion, a Brooklyn street cat with a bright red mane and a never-back-down attitude. It is her I need to thank for introducing me to the other strange flowers. She asked me to listen to Tippy's music. Once I heard it, I knew their was room for one more on our journey.

Nicole and I talk on the phone for hours when our world falls apart. It isn't easy being a lion. The world tends to stare or run. We understand each other -- the battles that are fought everyday just because we have decided to be ourselves.

Kerry

And that brings us to Kerry, and I love her most of all. She opened my eyes to a world, and a sensitivity, I never knew about. She watered me and watched me grow. Her family claims she has killed every plant she has ever tried to nurture. They should see me. I'm six feet tall. Even in Kansas, that's a frickin' big daisy. I would not be writing these words if not for the world she showed me. I would still be in the dirt, never having sprouted, but for the day I saw her. She was clutching a stainless steel coffee dispenser as big as she was -- an Irish pixie with huge brown eyes carrying what looked like R2D2 in the coffee shop where we worked.

I looked at her and said, "Is that carbon scoring on your droid? Looks like you guys have seen some fighting."

Little did I know she had been in a war most of her life. Witches and fire and flying monkeys trying to steal her damn ruby slippers. But she held fast in them. She knew their power must be very strong. I was a scarecrow, not attentive enough to have noticed that battle raging. I've grown so much since that day. Today I'm amazed when someone tells me that they have never changed. They are the same person they have always been, as if that is something to be proud of. What a shame. What a waste of a life not use the challenges to help us grow into something new. Strange flowers like us can bare some pretty amazing fruit.

Nicole, Tippy and Kerry, thank you.
Shine on,
Vincent



If you want to read something else that will make you fall in love with these strange flowers:

Kerry: This is What it is Like
Tippy: Superglue and Seashells
  Tippy: You Won’t See Me

Strange Light

I was reading an article about Susan McKeown (www.susanmckeown.com) in the Spring 2010 issue of The NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Advocate (www.nami.org/miaw). Susan wanted to know about other songwriters who also suffered from depression, but her search on Amazon.com only revealed Leonard Cohen. Well, he's the one who admitted it. There are millions of others who don't want to deal with the world's meanness, misunderstanding and the whispers as they leave the room. The world has made them feel ashamed to be themselves.

I know that for a fact. I've been ashamed. I am an artist with depression, so it is possible that I am seeing this problem through my own experience and not as it is. I've been known to do that -- a lot. One thing I do know: mental illness is today's civil rights battleground. I'm not crazy. Other artists I know with mental illness aren't crazy either. They are sweet, sensitive and so alive.

I should write about them. THESE are my people, my heroes, my friends. They are me. I have pretended for too long that I am like everybody else. I have... what is the phrase? Been in denial. Been a coward. But that really hasn't worked for me. A bird makes a really crappy gopher. I must be what I really am, even if it frightens the gophers.

I know some people will never understand, but I must explain what it is like to be us. Too many people assume "mental illness" equals crazy. I must have a mental defect and a low IQ. People begin to talk slowly and in small words, so I can understand. Others say I am too sensitive, I feel too deeply. God help me the day I become insensitive. Feeling too deeply (having both mental illness and creativity) can be a curse and a gift. They are a strange light that illuminates the world in frightening and thrilling ways. Being a mentally ill artist is not for the faint of heart.

The stories that I write for Strange Light (Adventures in Mental Illness and Creativity) will not be dry, clinical, serious or painted with a fake smile. They will be funny, tragic, silly and real. Now and then, as you read them, you may mutter, "I can't believe he wrote that!" Believe it. I am out to change minds.

If you want to chime in and tell me your take, please do. I need the interaction with like minded people. You know, us crazy artists. Understand, this is just a personal view from one artist with mental illness. When I write about an artist, I am not insinuating that they too are mentally ill... or particularly creative, for that matter. In the end, I worry about pleasing the toughest critic I know: me. I simply write about what fascinates me. My essays begin and end in my own delight. They are the expression of my own rapture with the world around us and the world in my head -- that mental landscape, the inner playground where creativity is the best swing set ever.

Shine on,
Vincent Blackwood

Written July 4th 2010 (Independence Day)

This Is What It Is Like

"This is what it is like," she held up her hand and showed me the tremble. Sweat rolled down her face. She had to sit. Kerry said, "I wanted you to see this. But I had to make sure I knew you well enough, first. I wanted to make sure you wouldn't run. Anytime I try to do something new -- outside my routine -- I get stressed and this is what happens. Thank you for coming with me. I couldn't have done this unless someone was there."

 When we saw the movie "A Beautiful Mind", Kerry provided commentary. Her voice was the only light in the room, yet it was bright enough to illuminate places deep inside her.

 10 years ago, at art college, a boyfriend betrayed her. He took her love and wonder without permission. She still has missing time; moments too horrible to remember. She still wakes up some nights seeing his face above her, as if it happened yesterday.

 "I don't want him to apologize," she said, "it is too late for that. I just want him to admit what he did. I want that piece of mind. I still dream of running into him -- telling him what a couple of greedy minutes had done to my life: 10 years of feeling I was drowning, suicide attempts, locked up in psychiatric wards, therapy, medication, HPV, cervical cancer, not feeling I could trust anyone ever again and having him rob me of being able to trust myself. Not being able to create for 10 years."

 When she was in the psychiatric ward, her parents had to begin to accept it: Kerry was gone. She might never be back. She might try to kill herself again -- she might be lost forever in the maze of her mind. They had to come to grips with the idea that they may never see their bright, artistic, curious, happy daughter again. The sunny girl who dreamt of being an artist. The one full of love and wonder who was about to shine so much beauty upon the world until someone tried to snuff it out.

 Doctors call Kerry's condition mental illness. I look at her and call it sensitivity and magic. I see the heart of an artist, full of the joy of life that ten years in hell could not kill. I could never understand why people tell others too be less sensitive. Is that the darkest thing that we unleash upon the world...sensitivity?

 Yes, Kerry lives in two worlds: the one everyone can see and another she has inside her. A world that stretches out forever and is smaller than a cantaloupe. I am privileged to visit Kerry's world. Everyday is another awfully big adventure. I don't control it. I go with it. I've learned so much about letting go and enjoying the moment from Kerry. To go anywhere with her is to let reality become a poem. It is a world of free association, after all Kerry is a jazz musician of the mind. And it is music to me. She rifts on an idea like Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet, but she plays with thoughts: endlessly inventive, bright and joyful. And they all tend to end with, "Oh -- I shouldn't have said that." Thank God, she did.

Her thoughts come and go so quickly. I have to always be aware. They are a golden speck -- the last ray of twilight sitting on a kitchen chair in the next room. If I hadn't looked up that second -- I'd have missed a masterpiece. Kerry showed me that there is beauty in every moment that will never be again. She taught me to stop and notice all the little shiny things in this world. You know, the things that impress kids and curious animals. The rest of us? Well, we grew up and let something deep inside die.

 During her cancer last year, she dealt with the trauma by drawing. Wonderful, compelling drawings. I can only think of one word that describes them: Kerry. She is creating again and there is a glow in her eyes. A bit of mischief too. Looking at photos of her from last year and what she is today -- we both gasp. She's come so far.

 What impresses me most, though, is that everyday she has to make a choice. Will she fight or give up. And she admits it would have been so easy to quit. This is too hard: the stress, the anxiety, the trembling hands, the possibility that people might think she's -- well, crazy. Who needs that? That is what it is like for Kerry. She could play it safe, realize how hard it is, crawl up in an attic and go into emotional hiding. But she is a fighter -- a bird that keeps getting shot down but won't stop flying. She is an artist, damn it. Start seeing artist. Imagine if Van Gogh had given up before he had ever painted. Imagine a world without Van Goghs. That is what it is like for me. I can't imagine a world without Kerry`s art. But in the end -- she is her greatest masterpiece.

 We sit in the college cafeteria until she feels better -- but it is getting noisy and crowded. We should go. I'll cook her dinner, we'll watch a movie and talk. Talk. That is always the best part. Anyway, we did what we wanted to do. We walked around and found where her classrooms were. She was going back to college Monday to earn her degree.

 "You have no idea what this means to me," Kerry said, "thank you so much for being there."

 I knew what it meant. Kerry was back

"Not in the Pink"

A drawing Kerry did the day she found out she had cancer. It is just like Kerry to see a monster and put flowers in its hair.