When in doubt, draw. This mantra has often rescued me from my swelling head, messy heart and mouthy bluster. In 1983 and ’84, we settled into summer quarters at the confluence of the Rocky Broad River and Reedy Patch Creeks in the Blue Ridge hamlet of Bat Cave, where I erased the Big Board and drew. Starting with the honest intersection of stilled eye, leaf cell, and pencil point, I did not move until there was only One Thing. The Beginning. Inbreath. Would the outbreath come?

I toured the exhibition and accompanying multi-image performance “The Breathing Eye” (1984) to museums, schools, libraries and galleries throughout the Mid-South and Southeast for several years. Created at the same time, “A Halcyon Day! A Day in the Life of Walter Inglis Anderson” (1984), a multi-image performance about the noted Gulf Coast artist’s life on an island, toured the U.S. for much of the 1980s, celebrating the ecstatic genius who made Mississippi home.

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