To paraphrase poet Mary Oliver's oft-quoted question, what art do I plan to make with the last part of my wild and precious life?

What's in a color? Quite a lot. It is one of the only categories I can think of that has interest on so many levels: each color has its own history of invention or discovery, there is a psychology of color, there is a science of color, there is a language around color, there is a racial and political aspect of color, color is universal as well as personal,

The structure in our lives helps to ground us in between flights of what sometimes feel like out-of-body-experiences with beauty. In the creative process, structure is often consistent, while beauty ripples and flows — sometimes unbidden — merging the perfect pair.

I began way too teenage-young stealing my sister’s Parliaments at fourteen and making myself power through coughs in the locked bathroom until I could smoothly get through a cigarette with the “cool” I was after. By the time I reached young adulthood, everyone I knew smoked.

Tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains in Amherst, Virginia is the VCCA. I have had two residencies here in my (almost) home state. I remember so clearly the first time I went in 1995. My son was only 2 and I left him with his more than capable father in order to have a week of art-making at this gorgeous mountaintop retreat.

I had my hands in a fair amount of glue today when it occurred to me for about the millionth time how amazing it is to be able feel things with my fingers. I have always been a toucher, dependent on that tactile sense to give me a better understanding of something. Didn't we all as kids, think it was the height of wonderful to have our hands in some kind of goo? I did. Whether gooey, natural or industrial, texture makes the world interesting and lights up a happy place in my brain when my receptors make contact.