... She stepped from the cab onto the pavement, adjusted her muffler under her chin, threw her stub cigarette onto the pavement and viciously stomped it out. She proceeded toward the bright blue awning where the dandy held the open door.
Those who say something cannot be done should never interrupt the person doing it.

Leading a charmed life, being everywhere and everything to everyone at the turning point of their lives. She had launched a thousand careers, some of them her own. She had been the one with the right label, correct recipe, or spot of money to get things rolling. This left most of the world in her debt in some quiet, desperate, blackmailing way.

Do you remember a time when payoff was not rampant?
She imagined some real, some imaginary faults.
Is it raining in here or is that my energy field?
It was apparent she loved RED.
I want this place to look like a garden, but a garden in hell.

This was a woman whom could simplify most abstract and hard-to-cotton ideas. For instance, she believed the only Deadly Sin was the 8th, which was bringing to list the other 7.

When spotted on the street, fellow New Yorkers wondered what dynasty she was from. Preserved, or, conserved. Which adjective to use? The consistency of her appearance over the decades helped make her an instantly recognized figure, and hid her age.

I went blind from looking at so many beautiful things.  -Diana Vreeland

-THE PAPER DOLL STORIES: life profiles & confessions
A peek into Cabinet of Curiosities, current installation at MOA Denver.

Inner drafts + outer climates.

...Food went in, art came out.
Usually austere in the face of her Saturnine humors, when she felt them creeping up she could be bitterly sarcastic, giving way to a melancholy that left her wondering if the black bile came from one’s mind, not gut.

The images in the corners of the intellect remain.
I never flinch at what is produced in the cryptic dissolve of my mind.

In isolation she met with psychosis, from time to time, which led to intense hallucinations.
Complex, intricate and intense. The deranged mind is sitting inside a howling cyclone. Turn the music up to calm thoughts and focus.
They say very articulate things, very strangely.

Apparent horror vacui. A suffocating atmosphere and clutter are shown by filling every space with drawn imagery. Yet, every sheet contained an empty hole known to her as eggs. Open for spirit’s escape. She entered into the art through the same device. Ghost signing her name with a 8H pencil. Progressing herself by transforming from a child to Knight to Emperor and finally to Saint.

Life planned as escape. I can’t die yet, I haven’t painted my Danaë.

She had been busy for years backing into a corner nest. Hatching escape plans and not getting caught, yet. Nor freed.

The stress of not moving only exaggerated her minds eye flying out over the fabric of the earth.

Purely decorative images held deep iconoclastic and idiosyncratic meaning.
Of course she was usually the only one looking.
Go ahead, ignore me...

from -THE PAPER DOLL STORIES: life profiles & confessions