Have you discovered something inadvertantly, and then you want it for everyone?

That was true for me in terms of my art. In terms of my art on cloth. Which… yes, I found in Colorado.

Okay, not that summer of hiking high peaks. Although that summer was definitely the reason I applied to the University of Colorado without even visiting. It was why I arrived the fall of 1970 at Denver airport and didn’t know how to get to Boulder. Why I was ready for adventure.

However, University of Colorado was another story in itself. I hadn’t realized how much hand-holding I had had at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School until I reached the huge campus in Boulder. There? I was another hippy arriving on campus where cowboys with pistols in their belts drove their trucks through town. I was a white girl from the east among Californians and Japanese-Americans and Latinos and midwesterners. Some of us in my dorm were called by their location: Chicago, Santa Fe, LA, Rochester … Seattle. I felt shy and overwhelmed.

It was in this setting that I befriended Alice, the RA. During her working hours, she was busy looking out for us. But off duty, she painted. She not only painted on canvas, but she also used hot wax and dye on cloth. She showed me how to do batik in the basement of that dorm. And I became her acolyte.

Not only was I mesmerized by the whole process, but I began to plan my life around it. I began to think: art was what the world needed. Art was solace and discovery and meaning and truth and… At any moment, I was always hoping to find Alice in the basement. “Show me how! WOW! I want to try that. I want to do more!”) I would steal time to join her: I loved every minute doing my art. And I decided everyone else would feel the same way. Hadn’t mankind always loved art? Shouldn’t they always be making art? I was sure that was what everyone felt and wanted.

Okay, I was 18. Do you remember 18? I was sure I had the answers. As did all my friends, even though their answers were not my answers. We knew. We were wiser than all those younger and all those older than us.

*Art for me. That was the answer. I knew.

I’m guessing you had a time when you knew too. I’m just guessing. Hmmmmmm. (?)

• (one of the few images I still have of my batik art)