In honor of my sixteenth birthday, my mother and I traveled from my hometown of Memphis to Nashville, Tennessee to see an exhibition of impressionist paintings. I can remember with great vividness how I first felt standing in front of Renoirs and Monets. Everything around me disappeared. My chest tightened, my eyes welled up with tears... I couldn't hear or speak. I was absolutely blown away. The power in those paintings was something that I couldn't define. When I happened upon Naropa University in the fall of 1995, I was twenty years old and unsure. I signed up as an art major, because, quite frankly, I didn't know what else to do. My experience there would shape me and my art profoundly. At Naropa, along with basic drawing and painting, I studied Japanese calligraphy. This discipline more than any other shaped what painting has become for me. Japanese calligraphy requires mastering the brush-stroke characters as well as noticing oneself and learning to be present. While practicing this, I began to notice the beauty that arrives when one is completely present. It is something more than simple visual beauty, it is something more elusive. It is innate. I believe that this is the beauty that I experienced when I first saw the work of Renoir and Monet. And, although I still cannot define this power that, in glimpses, exists not only in painting, but in music, dance, sports and life...I am inspired to explore this beauty in my life through my painting. My curiosity continues.