Like so many of you, this winter I worked in the middle of grief.

We showed up, didn't we?

We opened the documents,

consulted colleagues,

plugged away on the research,

filled in the blanks

all the while tracking on The Great Sorrow,

and Our Righteous Indignation,

hearing roars about The Fear of the Future,

reeling in How We Got to This Place,

chorusing And Who Will Care for the Children?!

Even in this darkness, work got done. I don't know about you, but I'm not entirely sure how that happened. People would ask what I was working on. How many times did I admit that often I physically <could not see what I was doing>? Because of that a lot of shitty painting happened. But here were are- and all of that process hangs in the group of work now on the gallery walls.

What I see is light. As I worked through this night, I still focused on the light. You'll see it on the walls: more sunrises than sunsets; several cloudy skies. But the real illumination I worked from came from the people in my life. These were the beacons for the way forward, the hope and joy in my life.

So, here's my toast on the opening of this show:

To John: for opening his doors, giving me space;

To my parents: for welcoming me into the world, providing me with a home;

To Carla: for offering love like breath, essential, consistent, life-sustaining;

To Renee: for steering myself back to myself;

To Allison and Shawn: for literally building a future for me, building a family here for us, building structures for my work;

To our Davis community, many in particular: for continuing to be our family, offering homes for us and my work, putting distance and time into their proper places;

To Alma and Jack: for being my eternal flames- a bank of sanctuary candles- who keep my own fire lit.

The wick of love is never consumed. Our lights will shine over any wall, through the longest of tunnels, nights, or winters. We carry it inside of ourselves, people on fire!

Skål! Come dance with me!