The Alligator Under My Bed...
When my dear husband Darrell passed away in 2023, I had been working on a life memoir in an online course with author Wilma Derksen , and some other participants. Darrell became ill with stage four pancreatic cancer, so the remainder of my online course had to be postponed. I was able to complete it later that year. The idea had been to create a life story to pass on to my children, so that they'd have a record of the stages of my entire life. So often children only know what they are told as they grow up. The idea of an art memoir was a natural followup to the original, since I had written many stories about my paintings and the people and places that inspired them. Most of all, I needed a place to tell about my art connections with my boss and mentor Steve Bell, poet Malcolm Guite for the book "Seven Whole Days," and Paul Boge who asked me to illustrate "The Biggest Family in the World." As a child, my older sister June frightened me by telling me that th...