May 12: Our tour of the strip didn't leave me much time to think about painting. I just started in on something around the house that caught my eye -- a deck chair by the pool with some plants reflecting in the blue water. I tried to justify the choice to myself, as I got to work, by thinking of Las Vegas as a place of illusions, reflections and careless use of water resources; but, in the end, it was just a simple painting. The light effect I was after disappeared before I could capture much of it, but it all came out OK, I think.

Norma said she's excited to have an original painting depicting her place. "That's my chair --that's where I live! Now it's art!" I wasn't sure it looked finished enough...but she said she liked seeing how a familiar scene could emerge from a fairly unresolved patchwork of colors -- the abstract play of paint.