On The Walls of My Room

Shirley Temple
Audre Lorde
Carlos Santana
Josephine Baker
Bob Marley

A National Geographic map of Earth's "Population and Resources"

A Lunar Phases calendar for 2010

Two postcards: one with the caption "One of my favorite places in the entire world is wherever you are"

and the other a 50s era photo-penciled shot of 24 women in two-piece bathing suits lying side by side in a circle to form a human "sunflower"

A photo of the sculpture "Thermonuclear Family" by my dear now-deceased friend, Jean-Paul Darriau.

A small print of "The Song of the Lark" (Jules Breton). This was one of the first paintings I ever saw outside my home. It hung over my desk in first grade. I looked at it for hours over the course of that year. I remember the girl's broad, dirty feet; the rough texture of the field and the breath-taking imminence of the dawn sky.

These images hang over my desk.

Other items hang on other walls. Three original pieces, created while I was in art school, hang over my bed:

an 11 by 17 inch collage of torn images, a drawing made with black charcoal on black construction paper, and a 9 x 14 inch oil pastel abstraction on coarse paper.

Every day I consider taking them down and throwing them away.

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I have no mirrors on the walls. There are no mirrors at all in my room.

The Shirley Temple picture is framed and under glass. When I need to see my reflection, I stand so the light is just right and look into it.