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That’s the tentative title for what might end up being a painting. I envision this writing scratched in paint or ink so that an under-layer of paint or ink shows through, but some kind of dry medium might also work, or maybe colored pencil over an ink wash–the layers are important. I have tried it in pencil before, when I first got the idea seven years ago. I know it was that long ago because we were living in Oaxaca then. I didn’t have the idea of making a portrait out of scribbled-out, obscured words at that time. I know I have that sketch somewhere and I’m curious what my earlier idea was.

The legible text tells a story. The most important points are here, but it will be longer and go into more detail in the next version. There’s more I want to write, but as this is quite small, the size of my sketchbook, I ran out of paper before I ran out of things to say.

This whole project makes me think a lot about my friend Karen Schiff, who is also an artist (check out her great drawings and writing about art here).