My husband says that after cancer I divested myself of busy work. I also realized that if I was going to succeed in art, I needed to do it with great intensity.

My dad was a psychologist; my mother a nurse. They took in strays over the years, which added to our already huge family. It’s a habit which stuck with me. In addition to my own four kids, we always seem to have a house full of other peoples’ children, of all ages.

Growing up, we had a Formica kitchen table printed with boomerangs. With a number two pencil, the boomerangs became noses, the noses faces. At dinner time, we washed the table.

It was a good thing we lived in a huge old house because we were a family with projects. The biggest of these was a hobby farm with forty cows, three horses, goats, chickens, and other nonsense, but there were plenty of other projects—building, sewing, gastronomy, and, of course, art. There might be a man-height steel assemblage in the study, a cardboard castle on the dining room table, clay in the laundry room, and of course canvases and drawings tucked everywhere.

My father was a skilled artist and we all learned to draw with great accuracy. That was the time when pop art reigned in high schools across America. From my dad, I learned about perspective, proportion, drafting and measuring, all of which were useless for my studies.

Carol L. Douglas, The Great Gorge of the Genesee, oil on canvas, 24" x 18"

Carol L. Douglas, The Joker, figure, oil on canvas, 40" x 30"