My recent pieces are named after Ovid's Metamorphoses, which I have been reading
since I chanced upon an excerpt that astonished me for its immediacy of language and 
ideas.   I usually don't read poetry, being a speed reader, so I was surprised to find myself
responding so much, especially as it was written in roughly the year one.  The rich but
pared down, almost muscular language is a close parallel for the kind of work I want to 
do in painting.  Ovid describes the world from its creation to his contemporary Rome and
tells the stories of all the gods and goddesses, which, being Roman really just describe 
human nature, with a few extra powers thrown in.  He tells the ageless stories of love, greed, 
creation, destruction, envy, just everything.
     I had been having a hard time writing the occasional statement and love the idea that
now I have a framework for my ideas.  I haven't had to change my themes, always rather
grandiose, but now just say that I am working from Ovid, and since his work is of Shake-
spearian genius in its all-encompassing nature, everything seems to fit, including the "Every-
man" sort of look to my figures.