Ta dah! There you have it.

Recently, I completed a project of the utmost difficulty and satisfied the requirements of my trade, amuse, amaze and befuddle. Am I a magician, a psychic, maybe a detective? Maybe a little of each. When I work, I belabor the difficulty of the materials, the questions of motivation. Am I an artist, what is the meaning of life? I keep working, looking at different angles, upside down, in reverse, different levels of light, surface, and reflective quality. Slowly, I build upon layer, after layer. My process has to meet tactile and health scent tests as well as visual critique unlike this easy made up world of printed words. Human eyes, the window of the soul, the visual sense, sees inward and outward. My process often leads back to the inner critic and the deep psyche, touching upon Carl Jung's collective unconsciousness and creative source. How do I exist on this planet? Am I worthy of the work? Would I have been a brave anthropologist, thorough psychologist, adequate chemist & engineer? Hey, I am doing the impossible here. I am bringing back to life a broken, smashed, has-been. No, not resurrecting a popular media idol recovering from a substance addiction. The task at hand is hiding every trace of what it means to be me. No artistic flourish of my signed signature, no finger-prints, no repeat patterns in color, texture and finish. No inclination that spell out married, female, white, privileged and American. I am a universal human being, doing the do. If it's a mountain I have to climb it, if it flows I have to swim in the waters, I hold myself accountable no matter my enjoyment of hyperbole. The job is complete, the check is deposited, the client is happy! Voila! The restoration job is beautiful, functional and discrete.