[Rick Mullin]

You haven't hurt it at all, Ann!

You're the first to step up to the issue of the black and white dolls and their positioning and what it means. I'm not going to give a narrative guide, but I like where you are going with it and that you are not absolutely sure where it goes!

Dolls like the outrageous one on the keyboard are hard to come by here as well. I bought this one about 30 years ago at a curbside garage sale in Maine. The guy who sold it to me said, and I will never forget, "that ain't no Woolsworth doll."

I've always feared painting the black doll. But I put him into the still life that I was building with no narrative intent, using stuff from my still life cabinet. The narrative began.

Well, a few notes... Yes, it's called Amerigo. There is a German beer bottle, and an English tea pot. A painted war mask in defeat or deflation. The globe is turned to North America.

I am a visual person. So I avoid putting together too detailed a description of what I'm painting or looking at, because that prescribes an experience, rationalizing things in and out of the frame. So, I don't see this as having any one story. What I like is what seems to be a kind of shock of uneasiness that you had when you confronted it, which caused you to investigate the meaning.

I'm glad that the "whole canvas" is singing. It's a complex harmony--I tried bringing all the items together using color.

Thanks,
Rick