The first emotion that arrived in me through this photo was anger and fear which emanated from the wiry hair like puckerbrush. But then there was that subtle fog and clouds in the background which gave me a feeling of faith. I felt like God might somehow suddenly appear on the scene and seemed to save me. I felt as though the image was captured beside a railroad track where nothing could grow. It reminded me of a time as a teenager when I accidentally took an express train out to the Bronx and it brought me all the way out to 125th street in New York City. I had to walk under a railway bridge to get to the other side of the track where I could head back. I was so scared. It was winter and so dark and I was afraid I was going to step on “the third rail” or that something terrifying would jump out at me on the other side of the overpass.

The song sounded like an English Celtic tune at first. I liked it. It would have been hard for me to create at all if I didn’t like it. I wanted to hear more of it. It’s very short. If I had to sum it up I’d say the song was haunted and was full of mysterious movement. The word “Puckerbrush” recalled to me my younger days in the 1960s when we: James Taylor, Kingman Brewster, Jim Hull and a bunch of us back then, were all connected through these back unpaved, puckerbrush lined roads. We’d all ride our motorcycles or horses up to each other’s houses to hang. I haven’t heard the word Puckerbrush since then. I was living in a place off Lambert’s Cove Road at the time and raising goats in my basement. When I made this drawing I left the song on repeat and the music fed me. This drawing is what came out. When I’m drawing as opposed to painting, I just let the work come directly through me onto the page with out a plan. In this case, the song spoke through me to the page. I was just the filter.

My first reaction to hearing the music was a mixture of feelings, a combination of courage, fragility, loneliness and hope. An image of a vulnerable figure peacefully accepting his circumstances, trying to find his place, surrounded by crowds in a very busy street where everything takes place with a very fast tempo. Or, the same figure in an empty or neutral space, detached from everything, where the spontaneous current of his thoughts are leading his actions without him being conscious of them. I was especially inspired by the whisper. The Lyric “Life is Angry Life is Holy in the Puckerbrush” reflects the capacity of a remote place, or a memory, to bring out the best or the worse of a person.

I meditated after seeing this painting and what came to me was a story about these characters I named “Tiger God” and “The Fish Woman.” The Fish Woman is looking forward into the future where there are no boundaries, the sky’s the limit and she’s literally coming out of her shell to signify she is no longer stuck in the past. The Tiger God faces backward into the past and looks over his shoulder at her in judgment and condemnation. He is literally cloaked in tradition, secretive and stuck in the past and in fear. To tell this story through my tea I chose a strawberry ginger toffee blend with a dragonwell base. Dragonwell represents the Tiger God. It is one of the oldest most traditional teas. It’s got a crisp sea like taste to it and it’s light enough not to drag down the hope of the Fish woman which I represented with strawberry, and wanted to be the overriding flavor. The toffee represents new directions and is the last flavor you taste.

Description Of Olfactory: I thought “How am I going to turn this painting into a tea?” I settled on a strawberry ginger toffee blend with a dragonwell base. I chose dragonwell it cause it’s one of the oldest teas and therefore, traditional. It’s got a crisp sea like taste to it. It is lighter in flavor so that the hope (represented by the strawberry) can ride the flavor and not be dragged down by the traditional heavy past. I used ginger cause it’s old and global. The strawberry provides hope and knowledge that there is a good future ahead so I wanted that to be the most dominant flavor. The toffee represents new directions and is the last flavor you can taste.

I meditated after seeing this painting and what came to me was a story about these characters I named “Tiger God” and “The Fish Woman.” The Fish Woman is looking forward into the future where there are no boundaries, the sky’s the limit and she’s literally coming out of her shell to signify she is no longer stuck in the past. The Tiger God faces backward into the past and looks over his shoulder at her in judgment and condemnation. He is literally cloaked in tradition, secretive and stuck in the past and in fear. To tell this story through my tea I chose a strawberry ginger toffee blend with a dragonwell base. Dragonwell represents the Tiger God. It is one of the oldest most traditional teas. It’s got a crisp sea like taste to it and it’s light enough not to drag down the hope of the Fish woman which I represented with strawberry, and wanted to be the overriding flavor. The toffee represents new directions and is the last flavor you taste.

Description Of Olfactory: I thought “How am I going to turn this painting into a tea?” I settled on a strawberry ginger toffee blend with a dragonwell base. I chose dragonwell it cause it’s one of the oldest teas and therefore, traditional. It’s got a crisp sea like taste to it. It is lighter in flavor so that the hope (represented by the strawberry) can ride the flavor and not be dragged down by the traditional heavy past. I used ginger cause it’s old and global. The strawberry provides hope and knowledge that there is a good future ahead so I wanted that to be the most dominant flavor. The toffee represents new directions and is the last flavor you can taste.

I meditated after seeing this painting and what came to me was a story about these characters I named “Tiger God” and “The Fish Woman.” The Fish Woman is looking forward into the future where there are no boundaries, the sky’s the limit and she’s literally coming out of her shell to signify she is no longer stuck in the past. The Tiger God faces backward into the past and looks over his shoulder at her in judgment and condemnation. He is literally cloaked in tradition, secretive and stuck in the past and in fear. To tell this story through my tea I chose a strawberry ginger toffee blend with a dragonwell base. Dragonwell represents the Tiger God. It is one of the oldest most traditional teas. It’s got a crisp sea like taste to it and it’s light enough not to drag down the hope of the Fish woman which I represented with strawberry, and wanted to be the overriding flavor. The toffee represents new directions and is the last flavor you taste.

Description Of Olfactory: I thought “How am I going to turn this painting into a tea?” I settled on a strawberry ginger toffee blend with a dragonwell base. I chose dragonwell it cause it’s one of the oldest teas and therefore, traditional. It’s got a crisp sea like taste to it. It is lighter in flavor so that the hope (represented by the strawberry) can ride the flavor and not be dragged down by the traditional heavy past. I used ginger cause it’s old and global. The strawberry provides hope and knowledge that there is a good future ahead so I wanted that to be the most dominant flavor. The toffee represents new directions and is the last flavor you can taste.

The poem gave the impression of a woman broken and “dismembered” both physically and emotionally through a destructive relationship. I thought of perhaps doing an abstract sculpture with limbs and joints dislocated, but decided to do broken and partly reconstructed doll instead. I thought of a woman bending herself so much to appease and please her abusive partner that in the process she is eventually broken to pieces. The words that came to mind were broken, sadness, frustration and increasing disillusionment. I sculpted a doll in clay, which is supposed to look like it has fallen to the ground and broken in a thousand pieces – and then subsequently been imperfectly glued and pieced together. In a later casting process this clay sculpture is cast first in wax and then in bronze, and finally painted with white and yellow colors to imitate the surface of a real porcelain doll.

Exploring the chain as a whole I felt haunted and a little sad but that something organic was growing which is how I took off on my journey. The first part of the design that came to me was branches and old, found lumber. I wanted the walls to have a certain amount of translucency to them to see other observers walking behind it, and I wanted the observer to be able to see into the other spaces to show that there is a bigger world to experience.