End Of Summer I just had a delightful lunch with Steve Freitch. He and his family spend part of the summer in my old friend Edie's farm house. Edie had to sell it after many years of living there and writing copious books about life in the country and living in the old farmhouse called Mary's Farm. She also wrote for years for Yankee Magazine. Steve and I met several years ago at a Waldorf Music event at an old estate in Dublin. Steve and I connect through the love of the arts. He has been a practicing artist. He and Nancy live in Baltimore where he worked for years for an artist of some repute. Hence he gave up pursuing his own art though he is in the process of building a studio at the farm house. Now retired, he deals in other peoples' art making gobs of money. It was a great time over lunch. We talked art the entire time. That's so refreshing for me as I truly have so little of that around here. He seemed excited to see where my work had recently gone with the VL Series. While looking at the one with the Frozen Charlottes, he suggested turning the porcelain dolls around so they are facing away from the viewer. Bingo. It took the piece to a whole other level. Secretive and mysterious. I felt the same excitement as I did when I implanted the empty black box into the panel instead of another antique box. Much more evocative. I think Steve was so right that turning the dolls around made the piece so much less obvious. It makes one wonder what the piece is saying about people. Are they just representing the spirits of the people who lived in the landscapes long ago? Are they unable to communicate because they are long gone. Just reminders of who they were?