It took waking up as the sun rises settling the soul in the body, buying my bus ticket waiting for the bus not sure when it would come. It took heading downtown, getting in at 12, with a container of food to last the day to fuel the painting inside. It took red, yellow and blue, and then ochre, and cadmium, deep umber, and hue, it took soiled brushes, numerous trips to blick, it took mentors appearing out of the shadows donating paint, donating canvases and surfaces, it took heaps and heaps of fabric, hot glue and stitching, beads, and nails, bamboo sticks, and channeling, long days of meditation, sitting in the depth of my composure waiting for inspiration. It took long walks downtown, stumbling into temporary thrift shops as the businesses switched from hand to hand, buying and finding bird feathers, collecting eggs and stones, harvesting flowers, inhaling peppermint and watching the petals of roses and buds of pussy willows, all fall down in the window as the sun set. It took gathering scraps, rearranging them many times, digging into the garbage finding gold and diamonds, dusting them off so you could see their beauty. It took ceremonies, it took many moons, bleeding into raw canvases making love under tabletops, watching the muses as they fade away, and become new again in a portrait. It took erasing myself and becoming invisible, giving my image entirely to the document, to the palette and to the walls. It took all of me to complete this exhibit and I could not be more proud as I lost friends and jobs in isolation and met folks from faraway places, countries and dimensions, fabricating the roots of this work.