I was having a conversation with Cynthia, an art consultant at the Elliott Fouts Gallery, about one of my paintings. Apparently someone was looking at one of my unruly stacks of books and said they’d constantly be compelled to organize the books, straighten them out and make a tidy pile.

I like hearing about how different people interpret my paintings. And the idea occurred to me then to honor different personality types and how they relate to each other and can be integrated in to the same relationship, or paintings, in this case.

A good friend of mine brought me an old paperback re-print of a Victorian era Popular Etiquette Book. Leafing through it, I have to say that although there are definitely missing virtues in today’s world, Victorian’s really made things uncomfortable for themselves with the litany of rigid rules and guidelines to follow.