Traveling Magician

Following from the post "In Defiance of Gravity," here is a painting which expresses the idea in action: the writer, when faced with Dick Cheney, an opera star with tragic obsessions, and a personal symbol of the conflicts of daily life, puts the pencil to paper and turns all of them into wisps of smoke, cloud illusions, little black letters that grow legs, take on the form of little black ants, and troop off the page. She creates a liminal space, an edge between two worlds. A squid, that master of illusion and deception, discovers that line and explores it. The squid, when in trouble, can instantly change identity, effectively disappearing, or he can misdirect, using a puff of black ink and some flashing lights (!) to keep the enemy's attention while he takes off. This can be the writer's new personal symbol: when there is trouble, she can take on the talents of the squid, wrap herself in a new character, couch current events in some sort of code, and write her way out of the mess. She can create a new perception. And from it, a new existence.