I’m fed up with trying to paint like others want me to.  I’m tired of the central Indiana art scene.  The only way to make it with them is to paint barns.  You have to use the same exact techniques.  You can’t tell the difference between one artist and the other.  Their paintings fill the local galleries and gather dust.  From now on, I’m going to paint what I feel like and how I feel like.  I don’t care if I ever get into another show or sell another painting.

This painting was done with pure emotion.  I just let the juices flow.  Look at it — she’s got feeling and presence.  Look at her eyes  — you know she’s thinking.  She’s surrounded by her work.

I entered this  in the state fair.  A  local type judge didn’t give it the time of day.  I thought that it was a failure.  Then someone told me congratulations.  I had won the Governor’s Choice Award.  They had come in after the original judge.  I got a huge ribbon.  The painting hung in the governor’s mansion.  At a reception there, the First Lady, Judy O’Bannon, told me how much she loved it.

So there.