The Subject is Paper, Not Cat Skinning I don’t actually chase my cat around with the vacuum cleaner, but in a manner of speaking I do. I love my big black cat. However he sheds fur. It is the gathering of this fur, dust, breadcrumbs, lint, dry skin, gray human hair, popcorn, and additional random detritus that led me, upon emptying to the vacuum cleaner bag, to both imagine my cat being gathered in bits and pieces as well as my personal history with turning scraps of nothing into wonderful sheets of paper. Your name and contribution will come later. My cat’s name is Puck. Later on in this narrative I will use the phrase: “There are many ways to skin a cat”. I love my cat and generally that phrase is offensive, but being a common expression, I will use it. Historically, paper has been around as long as I can remember. I have memories of drawing upon sheets of paper as far back as the early 1950s, although there are those who insist paper existed even prior to my birth i...

Her Lucca Studio One of my aunt Mary’s so-called failings was in her lack of dates and titles or locations On her paintings this canvas an exception 1962 it reads a view from her Lucca studio Across the flood plane of the Serchio bathed in crisp Tuscan morning sunlight 1962 seemed light filled until it wasn’t she crated her paintings sailed home After that November funeral exporting her own paintings back to the states a legal snarl This oil on canvas image bright and airy catches handfuls of promise and light It hangs in my daughter’s living room close to Lake Harriet far from Italy and 1962 Mary O'Hare oil on canvas 1962