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   As is wont, reality does have a way of intervening in one's concepts, doesn't it?  Real light, real drapery. real little green apples, a flesh and blood model, and before you know it, your ticket has taken you to quite a different destination than the one you booked.

  I was invited to participate in a show that will be installed at the end of the summer at the Charles H. Taylor Art Center in Hampton that will feature "Portraits of the Artists", and that was all I needed to finally get down to work on a self-portrait I'd threatened to execute many times.  There was no question about it, a drawing was demanded, so with a deep sigh, I sharpened all my pencils and got down to business.  It's called "cutting bait" (portrait of the artist as an old fish) but it could very easily be fish story, or something else as slippery.  The artist statement is easy.

    A few months back I had the opportunity to join a figure drawing workshop organized by Kathleen Kridler.  We met at One Eleven Art Gallery, (111 Pennsyvania Avenue, Norfolk) on Sunday afternoons and had at.  I had not drawn the figure from life in eons, but it was just like riding a bicycle and I found myself happy as a clam.  Thanks again, Kathleen!  (Thank-you, too, to Suzanne Watson for establishing such a vibrant little gallery!)  Anyhoo- this particular model had the most incredibly fluid quality about him- he flowed into poses, and the went with it,  with the calmest of surfaces, not a muscle bunch to be seen.  In a lot of ways he was in great contrast to his surroundings which were very busy, very active- artists hard at work, an exhibit on the walls, the open studios of the resident gallerists- in fact we'd had to clear the space where he posed of chandeliers and a vase of lilies before he laid himself down on it.