Some people read maps. Others collect them. Most can’t fold them back. That’s me. When I was living with my next door neighbor, Andrew Wyeth came to dinner. I was 16. He asked if might paint me - nude - for a new series. My mother said, “Absolutely not.” After I started my career as a journalist telling stories - 8 years of hard news and art documentaries in New York City for NHK Japanese public television. During that time I painted, attended graduate school in art history, and worked the early morning shift building architecturally worthy desserts at La Cote Basque. Never one to sit still, I interned at the Museum of Modern Art in the photography department reading the original, handwritten letters of Edward Steiglitz - complaining that his hand writing was abominable. My interest in public art began when I met Christo and Jeanne Claude in Tokyo. As we became friends, they invited me to participate as a translator and installer for the 1991 Umbrella Project in Japan and California. It’s during this time, I observed how art can transform a community. In 1994 was my first solo museum show at the Greenville County Museum of Art. And, now 30 years later... My life is a layered map of surprising intersections, memories, and experiences that continue to unfold.