I've been thinking about how hard I am on myself when I create. I think I am comparing my work to some unknown ideal. If you look around my small basement studio (closet), you will see many drawings, sketchbooks, and paintings that are half finished. They have been abandoned by their fickle creator for some other fancy. I'm sure some would think this small room a gold mine. I used to think that about my grandmother's living room. Under every chunk of furniture was a unique clay sculpture. Under the furnishings were the burial grounds for what she considered to be her failures. To me they were a treasure. She used to panic as we pulled out the pieces, "put that back, I hate it. It just doesn't look right." We used to "shop" under her couch at every visit. I still have 3 of her pieces, although not her best work, they are a reminder that Mary Berezan was a talented artist whose once lived in Athabasca Alberta. She dug her own clay out of the banks of the river, and created her sculptures of nature. Her artwork was(is) valuable as it represents the point of view of one who looked closely at nature. I owe a lot of my influence to her, also to my mom...but that's another story.