The Brooklyn Rail

Of course! I was the only woman in my MFA program the first year. Syracuse let in two more women the following year. Half of the guys were there to get out of getting drafted to Vietnam. I was one of two people in the program that went to a state school for undergrad and not art school. Everyone else came from Pratt, Cooper Union, Cranbrook, Detroit Art Institute, etc. I ended up befriending Alfredo Martinez from Texas who became the chair of an art program in one of the Connecticut universities. I don't know what happened to anyone else. There were a lot of arrogant guys in the program. They would say things like, "wow, you’re actually really good," as if it was a shock to them. People didn’t expect me to be any good. I heard that kind of thing all the time. It might have been because I had a thick southern accent. I had never left the south or seen snow until grad school! My best friend in grad school was Tom Deschmidt. He became my mentor and taught me how to use the woodshop and build my own stretchers. We used to drive down to NYC together to look at shows. At the end of my first semester in grad school, I won the Everson Museum Regional Show and the museum bought the painting. That's when the faculty started paying attention to me. This was before Jim was the director. 

When I met Jim I was painting objects that were strewn on the floor. I don't remember the specifics of the studio visit other than the fact that he offered me a show at the Everson. I was so excited about it that it must have overshadowed the rest of the visit. He hung the show in such an interesting way. All of the paintings were installed close to the floor. He also thought to include work by my students from the Jamesville Penitentiary. My work was upstairs and their work was downstairs in the lobby.

Jim called me when he heard I was having a retrospective at MCA Houston in 2015. We didn't get a chance to see each other because he wasn't feeling up to meeting, but he said he was really proud of me.