Robert Mapplethorpe now Purified, but now boring. A transformation project on Richard Marshall's Robert Mapplethorpe (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990).

Acrylic, pencil and ink on found pages. The public controversy that Robert Mapplethorpe's photographic work created truly astounded me. At the time, it was obvious that the slick prettified imagery was just too informative, and too real. All the hateful gnashing and invective comments I heard finally inspired me to censor those naughty images. I believe the finished product is now safe enough for Jesse Helms to place on his coffee table.

I believed that I sewed the seed for my eventual involvement in the books arts at the Kaimuki Intermediate School Spelling Bee finals. My stomach churned with nervousness as my fat dry tongue spelt out the word catharsis incorrectly. In retrospect I never realized how one word could have such an enormous impact on my life.

Twenty-four years later, my life changed. Shortly after receiving a 1992 Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship Grant for the Transformation Drawing Series, I decided to create a picture book that pictorially depicted my divorce and the tumultuous turn my life had taken. It seemed as if the gods were with me. The following year, I received a Wisconsin Arts Board Individual Project Grant, which enabled me to develop what I believed would be the final set of drawings for my story book.

I showed a good friend my drawings and writing samples, who gently told me I needed to develop the narrative text portion of my book. Five years later, I am striving to remarry my completed text with the original drawings. The journey is coming to a close!