Childhood experiences continue to inform my work. A Louisiana native, I grew up surrounded by bayous, cotton fields and Indian mounds. I loved exploring all of these venues and spent a lot of time looking for arrowheads, digging in the turn rows, and examining wild life in the bayou. Rather isolated, entertainment came from my own invention. I remember a game my sister and I called cool spot. The turn row at the edge of the cotton field was dusty and extremely hot. We would drag the shovel to the turn row and dig deeply till we hit cool, damp earth. Each of us would stand in the hot dust until one of us would break down and jump into the cool spot alleviating our burning feet thus losing the game. In the process of digging we would find an assortment of treasures, broken bottles, old marbles, pottery shards and an occasional arrowhead. These bits and pieces, rough fragments of objects hinted at the history of their former life and created a mysterious narrative. These experiences still hold a certain fascination for me and continue to surface in my work through elements, symbols, and story telling.