Humans are the only known species that make and use objects to inflict bodily harm. They are alone in killing others and their own in such great numbers: for food, territory, greed, desire, revenge, high emotion, hopelessness, blind faith, and hate. Some believe that to defend themselves they must own and be prepared to use a weapon, to kill. To end a life. To kill again. This is the cycle of our violence.

Be courageous, be more than fear. Lay down your arms, be loved.

The sky is clear. The moon, bright. The air, still.

I breathe the cold crisp quiet before the dawn. I marvel at its beauty, the earth, my home. I fill with wonder. I stay no more than five small minutes, then start my work.

Ideas, principles, reason may persuade me, but it is the strength of my feelings that move me to make.

The rich, energetic, unbridled, elaborate experience of emotion is the pulse to my creative life.

I wonder whether art leads to anything more than ephemeral change.

In night and dream I wake. I am the Persian blue with flowered form I gaze, a morning past, the sound of bugle call, the touch of word from field of war one hundred years before.

Although my attention on art is brief in my day, it moves my heart and mind, it plays on me. The more I return to it, either through purpose or accident, the greater its lasting impact on how I act, will act.