Horst, of Salzburg

Last time I was on study abroad with students, we had a guide in Salzburg, who I didn't care for, and who didn't care for me. The weather was brutally rainy and cold, the students under-prepared for the weather, wearing flip flops and flimsy outerwear. Horst kept the march going from one site to another, even as our interest wanted. Late in the tour, He stood looking down at me. I raised me camera and shot up into his nose and eyes. Neither of us said anything.  I have known for some time that Horst had to appear in my painting.

Time for An Old Friend

When I was eight or nine, my mother enrolled me in swimming classes at the YWCA (you read that right--W not M). I refused to go to the church-owned Deseret Gym, because males, young and old, were required to swim in the nude. The idea of a policy like this still haunts me, because I never wanted to see an apostle or prophet in the buff, let alone my friends up the street. So YWCA it was.

I knew I had problems from the start. I just didn't float well, but I managed to get back and forth across the narrow pool without hitting bottom. I was in the pollywogs class, and when it came time for the final test, to move up to the young frogs class, we had to float 15 seconds. I couldn't do it. I could not stay afloat for 15 seconds. I failed the Pollywog Class and went home in humiliation. That was the end of swimming for me.

We were discussing the float vs. no-float issue with Louise's dad one night, and he said, in his very Dutch way, "Everyone can float."
 "No," I said, not everyone can float.
"Well," he said, "black people don't swim in the Olympics, because they can't float either. But they're the only ones."
My patience was running low, so I said, "You don't see ducks in the Olympics either."

So this painting was my dedication to my inability to float--still. Louise once took me to the pool in our apartment building and tried to test this out. "Now just lie back," she said, "and I'll hold you up. Then I'll let go very slowly, and you'll float.

Very slowly she took her hands away, and equally slowly, my feet went down, my head came up, and I sank.

This picture, which I call "The Sinker," (there's no "t" in there, Kathryn Withers, Sinker, not Stinker, is my tribute to all those souls who sink.

Dandy Pig