I felt a sense of dread as I headed south for Passover, knowing that I had this project to deal with. Luckily Larry was coming along and I knew I could trust his opinions when going through the work on what to throw and what to keep. I really appreciated having his help, but when we got to going through the stuff, it was obvious. I'm not very sentimental either so it was easy to let things go.

I was a really good student in college. I showed up for all my classes, worked hard while I was there, paid attention, gave sensitive and relevant criticisms to my fellow students, and I even got a tiny bit of scholarship money one year. My grades were better than good and when I graduated, it was with honors. In retrospect, this is shocking because the work I was doing was crap.

Larry and I tore apart two large canvasses, took the work out of frames, rolled up stacks and stacks of drawings, and drove the whole lot over to a dumpster behind the art department at the University of Oregon. The stretcher bars we stacked in the alley behind the painting studios -- we learned how to build really nice stretcher bars in the shop at school and I knew that these would get snapped right up. But the rest was trash. In all kinds of ways. I'm not sure I know why they graduated me, not to mention why they passed me with honors. Oh, I was tenacious, dedicated, focused, all the things a good student ought to be, but when I looked at that work after all this time I could see little talent or promise.

The amazing thing is that I turned out to be a pretty good painter. (When I'm really working, that is.) The work I've done since living in Seattle is work I'm really proud of. It's beautiful (to me) and incredibly meaningful. I would not be ashamed to show it to the friends that I'd graduated with or the teachers that I so respected. I was, for a few years, not just making consistent work but selling it too. I had four pieces in the Bellevue Art Museum. I don't paint nearly as much anymore, having migrated to a career that requires so much more of my creative energy than working in retail sales, but when I do paint, I can do something fairly worthwhile. Having just gone through the work I did in art school, this is a big surprise.

I found two keepers in all that work. One piece is a ceramic torso, about a foot high. It's the first piece of sculpture I'd ever made and my teacher was so impressed he asked me to sign up for special studies with him. I was thrilled but declined because I really wanted to be a painter. The other keeper was a painting - the second to last painting I did before leaving California. I know it's second to last because I took the last one, an unfinished panel, home too. I have the sister to that painting hanging in my bedroom now and it's probably my favorite piece. I must have been trying to recapture that painting I left behind, because it's so clear that they're related. It was like finding an old friend again, and I can remember most of what I was thinking at the time that I made this piece. It's sitting on the floor below it's later sibling while I study it and try to decide where to hang it.

Larry tells me that when he taught art, it was hard to be responsible for grades, but that he looked for students who were working hard, not screwing around, and really trying to reach for new things. My work was shamelessly derivative of that of my advisor, but the teachers must have sensed my dedication and determination. I was in the third floor studios all the time, Walkman on, pushing that paint around and trying to get somewhere with it. It's funny how effortlessly the work came later, it just fell out of my hands, and how difficult it's become again to make art.

I don't know how many of my classmates are still making work. Rick tells me he's still painting but that it's a continuous struggle to find the time. Terry seems to be producing pretty consistently, but her schedule also seems to be much the same as it was when we were in college -- that kind of continuity in her life must be helpful. I don't think Josh paints anymore and I don't know if Tim does. Bob must have been derailed when they sold the house after the divorce because he used the garage as the studio. Trish moved so far away and writes about her job and living in Norway, but she seldom mentions making art. Gwen circles around it, I think, trying to find the space and the time in her life to paint, but I don't know how successful she is. I just move the furniture around in the studio and never really make anything.

It's been two years since I've made even a half-assed attempt at painting. I'm staring down the barrel of a busy spring, but the days are getting longer and I really don't need to be watching so much television, do I? Larry has been nagging me for some time now. "Are you using that stuff I gave you?" He goes in the studio every time he's here. "Whaddaya got going in there? Making anything?" Oh, it gets up my nose, but I need to hear it. I should be painting, he's right. Even the ex-husband knows I can make work of value -- he asked me if he could keep a few of the pieces that he'd grown to care for.

Maybe I'll finish that piece I started almost seven years ago when I left California and moved to Seattle. A whole lot of teachers and friends and even the occasional patron saw something worthwhile in the paintings I made. With luck and hard work, I might see it again myself.