1974 Gainesville Florida

Encaustic painting on wood

43 cm x 60 cm

1974, Gainesville Florida

I could have painted a million things for this place. The huge old live oak with Spanish moss that I put on my head like a wig, and then got red bug bites for punishment. The hill where we would slip and slide, skidding on the grass at the bottom and then running back up to do it again. Playing with my friends Pancho and Carlitos, making a swing from a jump rope and falling flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me. The older neighborhood boy throwing my cowboy boots on top of the laundry room. Tasha, my first best friend, whose family came in and out of our lives again and again over the years.

This was Schucht Village, married student housing for medical students at University of Florida. I lived there from approximately 1973 until 1976. My earliest memories are of the apartment and the places around it.

But this memory - the one in this room - is my first memory of music. “Moonshadow” by Cat Stephens. I would ask my mother to play this song over and over on the record player, and I would dance. I think I was three.