I see Katharine everywhere: a brown haired girl in a ball cap, a gesture, a blue watering can, old invites around my studio. I’m working with a new gallerist in Santa Fe who reminds me so much of her. Her absence is a presence.

But I think about her most when I’m painting and I wonder what she would have thought. I did that when she was alive too, but I think she likes my work more now. Or maybe my work is better now. We’ll never know.

Sometimes I think about the places she lived and worked. The back of 1080 Bus. The under-heated space up on Dupont. XXX Coffee. Or her clothes. The silver mountain ring we both bought from the Weekend Variety. I remember a pair of turquoise velvet jeans she wore waiting tables at O’boy, when we were both students at OCA. The jeans were amazing and I coveted them and I wanted to get to know the kind of person who would wear turquoise velvet jeans to wait tables in a diner.

I made this little painting of Katharine smoking in a field. We never traveled together but I visited her a couple of times in NY. I don’t think I ever saw her standing a field smoking at night, but in my mind, this is something we did together. Maybe when we were young. I thought if I could conjure her up in paint, I could spend some time with her again.

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6” by 6”
Acrylic on wood panel
2021