Not sure if it's right to celebrate personal achievment and eulogize my sister in one post, or maybe it isn't even appropriate to publicly eulogize,  I don't care. What I want to do is celebrate my sister and to acknowledge what a driving force she was for me in becoming an artist.
I lost my big sister Alice suddenly and tragically this past Saturday night. Throughout my life Alice urged me along in my creative pursuits, every birthday and Christmas her gifts to me were sketch pads, drawing pencils, markers, art books, etc etc. She left home early and was quite distant my entire life but would swoop back into my life and say "you're going to make it" or look at one of my drawings and say "I hate you"-which of course was the highest compliment she could bestow.
Aside from her prodding me along she was an inspiration as an artist herself. Her embroidery was exquisite, her apartment full of fantastic creations, turtle shells, feathers, pebbles, sea glass, antiques, flea market finds, her own creations from fabrics to painted, things she found beautiful and collected along  the way, glass paper weights, blown glass, fantastic ephemera throughout-just a treat for me to visit.  When I was a teenager and making things out of wood ,badly---my brother was the real mmastr, and still is, but  she would pay me to make display cases for her, or mirror frames, anything to keep me busy. She hired me at the art gallery that she managed, where I cleaned toilets, cut the grass, spackled and painted walls. She hired me to do all that but I think she also wanted me to just be around art.
We've lost touch over the years, she becoming more and more reclusive, me growing away from my family. Everything that I do in art is in no small part because of her and always will be. God Speed Alice.
 
These are two accepted entries into Communication Arts, a difficult competition to get into. Thanks Alice----I can hear her words-- "Show Off"