FamiLee Life

On Writing in the Academy

Today has been a writing day. What a luxury. When I arrived in the office this morning, I noticed that I had no appointments or deadlines written in my calendar for today. Gasp! I immediately seized upon the chance to write. Such a simple but rewarding act.

What am I writing? I am revising a research paper that a graduate student and I had written for journal publication over a year ago. The first draft was submitted to a well respected journal but was rejected because the editor and reviewers wanted a stronger theoretical framework and more data to support our hypotheses. This decision arrived sometime last Fall. The manuscript sat untouched for a few months, until I revisited it last Winter. I carefully addressed the reviewer comments, reanalyzed some of the data, added additional data to support our position, and began to rewrite the introduction. Then, as is often the case, other deadlines and projects took priority and the revised manuscript and study was left uncompleted. Last week, I finally picked it up again.

Writing does not come easy to me. Don't get me wrong. I certainly enjoy writing (otherwise, I would not have this blog). In high school, I once wrote a book review on a book that I had not read. I received a C on the paper with the grading broken down into two sections: writing quality (A) and content (F). Fortunately, it averaged to a C. Like many other angst-ridden teen, I also wrote lots of bad poetry and prose, occasionally kept a journal, and once in a blue moon wrote a letter to a distant friend. By college, my writing was pretty pathetic. Prior to my first year at Simon's Rock, I participated in their summer writing program for entering students and the English professor patiently deconstructed my writing. It was humbling, but very educational. I slowly began to learn to write. By graduate school, I found that my writing was still below par. I suspect it was probably better than most college graduates, but it was far from sufficient for graduate level work. So, I took to learning how to write all over again.

Graduate school level writing is a different beast than undergraduate writing. It requires amassing a large quantity of literature of varying quality, critiquing the material, synthesizing the information, incorporating new ideas and insights, and then attempting to communicate this knowledge in a concise and coherent manner. B.S. is no longer acceptable. A graduate professor once told us that it is far harder to write a one paragraph synopsis than a two-page synopsis because the former requires you to truly understand the material. At the time, I accepted his wisdom. Today, I understand and agree with him.

Here are some things that I have learned about writing in the academy.

I tell my students that they must use an outline. Few follow this advice. Most students procrastinate and then find themselves having to comprehend, synthesize, and organize their thoughts at the same time that they write. This leaves little time to carefully craft an outline.

I also tell my students to write iteratively. By iterative, I mean that they should re-read and re-write what they already had written and then build upon these improvements. I suspect that some follow this advice, but many do not. Instead, students often submit papers that are written in one sitting. These papers almost always lack proper sentence and paragraph structure and, worse, contain disjointed or contradictory ideas. Rereading what one has written helps to highlight such errors.

Write simply. Avoid "flowery" language. Avoid writing in a conversational style. Be concise. Sentences should have a subject, verb, and predicate. Watch your tenses and remember what is the subject and what is the predicate. Do not use too many prepositional phrases or clutter sentences with unnecessary adverbs and adjectives. Some students think that they write simply, but they are deluding themselves. Critiquing their writing can be hard on the instructor and the student.

Breakdown each thought, each sentence, each paragraph. Ask yourself, can it be written better? By better, I mean from a structural and content perspective. Can the sentence be written more simply? Is the information presented in a logical manner? Is the main point addressed and supported?

I encourage students to read in their spare time. TV is a great thing (trust me, I love TV), but reading helps you to become a better writer. Don't read just TIME magazine and PEOPLE magazine. Read the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly. Read new fiction, classic novels, biographies/memoirs, and other nonfiction books. Read book reviews! I find book reviews are a great way to learn to critique.

Finally, I always tell my students to identify and remember what is the narrative thread that runs through the entire manuscript. Tell a good story and make sure the writing is consistent with the main story line. Always check your writing to make sure the narrative thread is still there.

These are a few lessons learned and I have to remind myself of them as well. Writing does not come easy to me and probably to most people. In revising this manuscript, I find myself finding and correcting inconsistencies, rewording sentences to make them more concise, more direct, deleting whole paragraphs, copying and pasting text and then reinserting it later in a different location. It reminds me of a montage. I keep having to step back to see the bigger picture and then moving back in for the close detail-oriented work.

Okay, back to writing. It's a luxury and today is the day to enjoy it.

S.S. Amnesty

Heads up to Paul L for tipping me off to an online photograph of S.S. Amnesty (as in Single Speed - creative, right?!) at the Homie Fest. The photograph (which I cannot seem to download) was taken by a mysterious man named Mark who posts online photographs of bicycles that he has seen around town. I suspect that I actually know who is Mark but just have never formally been introduced. He also makes a cool t-shirt that someone should buy for me. Find out more at I Bike Mpls.

Transnational Adoption Paradox (and more...)

Individuals who were adopted internationally as children and raised in a a different cultural/national context - almost always by parents of a different ethnic/racial background - must negotiate the involuntary displacement and loss of their birth family, birth culture, and heritage/history and the subsequent placement within an adoptive family with a new nationality via assimilation. I have termed this set of contradictory experiences of loss and gain as the transnational adoption paradox.

As these individuals grow and mature during adolescence and adulthood, normative questions of identity are compounded by this paradox. The eventual question of "Who am I?" is complicated as individuals begin to explore their family history - biological and adopted. Learning, searching, and discovering one's ethnic roots and heritage are made difficult by the lack of cultural understanding, loss of language, and feelings of not belonging. Searching for birth family is not always fruitful, adding to more unresolved questions and compounding feelings of loss. Reunions with birth family also can be overwhelming and confusing as each family member tries to communicate the mix of feelings across an ocean of cultural differences. Questions of why was I adopted are difficult to answer as feelings of shame and hurt cloud answers. As adopted individuals explore what it means to be Korean (or Chinese, Russian, Guatemalan), relations with adoptive family likewise can become strained as family members' feelings, fears, and wants are difficult to communicate, resolve, and understand. These are some of the potential consequences of the transnational adoption paradox.

Mother Jones has a wonderful piece on the ways in which the transnational adoption paradox manifest itself in the lives of adopted Korean Americans who are reclaiming parts of their ethnic/birth heritage, returning to South Korea and/or reuniting with their birth family. Read these first person quotes here or continuing reading. Plus, read these related articles on the realities, challenges and controversies of international adoption (here, here, and here).

In Their Own Words

October 24, 2007

Since the end of World War II, over 100,000 Korean infants and children—approximately one out of twelve Korean Americans—have been adopted into American families. While there are no statistics documenting what percentage of them have been reunited with their birth families, it's clear that the number is growing steadily. As the oldest and largest population of transnationally adopted people in the United States, their experiences of search and reunion shed light on what the future may hold for younger generations of adoptees from China, South America, and other parts of the world.

When you grow up in a culture you can read cultural cues and subtleties. You can read a situation and you can make reasonably sound gut-level judgments about people and situations. But when you are going to a completely different culture, you have to learn everything new.

It's under these circumstances. . .that we are trying to re-enter contemporary Korean society and build relationships with people who are both completely foreign to us and who are also our families. Neither we nor our families are guaranteed to be people who are patient, gifted with languages, and culturally flexible, or possess the economic means, time, and lifestyle necessary to actually build a relationship over these almost insurmountable barriers. Nor are we guaranteed to be psychically strong enough to handle the extreme stressor of a reunion in our lives, especially after the adoption and separation itself takes such an emotional toll on mothers and adoptees.

—Jane Jeong Trenka, author of the memoir The Language of Blood and coeditor of Outsiders Within: Writings on Transracial Adoption

I've been in reunion for ten years. When I see my birthmother I've definitely seen the pain and the hurt a little bit less, but it still is there. And I wonder if it is still valuable for her to see me. I know she feels guilty and I know she feels shame and that it's an awkward relationship because she knows that in some ways she failed. I'm there to let her know that everything is okay. But I also question whether or not it is helping her.

The second time I met my birth mother, I wanted to give her money. I was with a second-generation Korean American gentleman and he said, "No, you can't do that." And I asked, "Why not?" I didn't have a lot—I was 25 years old—but I wanted to give something. And he said, "I can't explain it, but you just can't do it." So I ended up going with him and taking my birth mother to a Korean barbeque, which is an expensive meal in Korea, and she just ate a small little bit of rice and water and didn't touch any of the meat. And she asked, "What kind of parent am I letting you pay for this meal?" And that's when I got it: Nobody could have explained it but just from observing her I understood that in Korea you take care of your child, even if that child is 25 or 30. That is the relationship. For me to give her money would have lowered her status as a parent. Now that I'm married it's different and I can give because it's like I'm a different kind of person. But one needs to be respectful of all of these cultural nuances.

—Hollee McGinnis, policy director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a research and advocacy institution.

When we first met I thought, "Wow, I could have had this parallel life in Korea and it would have been a lot different." It was the best choice for my dad to put me up for adoption. I could definitely see where he was coming from and what he thought would be the best option for me. But I don't really dwell on it because it's not my life. In truth you can't regret that other life because it's not yours. I think of both my families as one unit. I feel pretty comfortable saying, "I'm going to see my family," but it kind of confuses people because I don't distinguish between my Korean dad and my American dad because I see them both as my dad. They feel like one family to me. It feels like my family has grown. Really all my connections to Korea have made me a better person.

—Daniel Martig, an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota

When she was dying, my mother told one of my brothers, "You have a sister and she went to America." But there was no context for that statement. And so when my brother asked their father—who was not my father—what she meant he just said, "I don't know." That happened quite some time before I found them.

The difficulties are much less emotional because we are siblings [and not child and parent], but even so there are many. For example, I had so many questions to ask them such as, "Why was I adopted?" And they were really quite puzzled by this because other countries aren't so open about their feelings and emotions on any level—and certainly not about something as intimate as adoption. You cannot just transfer Western culture and feel like this is the way it should be.

Susan Soon keum Cox, vice president of public policy and external affairs at Holt International in Eugene, Oregon

Adopted children whose birth parents named them deserve to carry that piece of their heritage with them, as it is one of the few parts of their birth histories they can lay claim to as part of their very own, real, authentic, true-life stories. Adoptees, such as myself, whose names were given to them by social workers, nurses, or orphanage intake workers may find that although those names don't represent a piece of their birth histories or bloodlines, they nonetheless represent pieces of their rightful histories.

It reminds me that I am who I am today because of the choices made for me by other people. It represents to me the wrongs done to my umma and many, many others like her that left her with no freedom and no chance to give me a name that linked me to her or to my sisters. The fact that my Korean name is dissonant among the matching names of my three Korean sisters, whose names fit together as harmonies in a chorus, is a scar on my flesh that I bear proudly and with a sense of profound loss. We do not match, but we know why.

—Ji In, a Hawaii-based writer and editor and the author of Twice The Rice, a blog that in part explores her experience as a transnational and transracial adoptee

Elizabeth Larsen has worked for both Sassy and the Utne Reader. She wrote about her daughter in this year's Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion.

Important Life Questions Answered!

AskWiki is a useful little Wikipedia-based search engine. I asked it about "FamiLee Life" but came back empty-handed. Argh! So I asked a few more questions...

Answer to Your Question: "what is international adoption?"

International adoption refers to adopting a child from a foreign country. This often involves transporting a child from one culture into another. Controversy surrounds both the positive and negative consequences of this transfer since these children are often not legally autonomous decision makers, and therefore do not have the ability to choose the adoptive parents or their ultimate destination. Additionally, because of the high demand for children and the often high potential for abuse in unregulated environments, children can become a commodity, so the welfare of the adoptive child must be the primary focus of all the parties involved -- the country of origin, the orphanage or foster family, the adoptive parents, and the country into which the child is being adopted.

From Article: International adoption

Answer to Your Question: "who is ed bok lee?"

Ed Bok Lee is the author of Real Karaoke People: Poems & Prose, a national best-seller in poetry and winner of a PEN/Beyond Margins Award, as well as an Asian American Literary Award (Members' Choice Award).
Lee attended kindergarten in South Korea, grew up in North Dakota and Minnesota, and has since lived in a half-dozen different cities around the world.
He studied Slavics at the Universities of California--Berkeley, Minnesota, Kazakh State--Almaty, and holds an M.F.A from Brown University.

From Article: Ed Bok Lee

Answer to Your Question: "who are the boston college eagles?"

The Boston College Eagles are the athletic teams representing Boston College. They compete in NCAA Division I-A as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports offered by the ACC. The men's and women's ice hockey teams compete in Hockey East. (Skiing, fencing, and sailing are also non-ACC) Boston College is one of only 13 universities in the country offering NCAA division I-A football, division I men's and women's basketball, and division I hockey.

From Article: Boston College Eagles


Answer to Your Question: "what is the most dominant religion in the world?"

*Abrahamic religions are by far the largest group, and these consist primarily of Christianity, Islam and Judaism (sometimes Bahá'í is also included). They are named for the patriarch Abraham, and are unified by their strict monotheism. Today, around 3.4 billion people are followers of Abrahamic religions and are spread widely around the world apart from the regions around South-East Asia and China.

From Article: Religion

3-8-6 Generation

I had lunch today with two Korean American academic colleagues. HTC is a Korean language/linguistics instructor at the University and EBL is a good friend and also a professor of creative writing at Metro State in St. Paul. I must say that it was really nice to share a meal with Korean American colleagues (i.e., lunch with more than just one other person). I think it was a first for me in all my years teaching! Amazing.

I also learned that I am a part of the 3-8-6 generation. This is a phrase used among Koreans in Korea to describe the cohort of people who are in their 30s, grew up in the 1980s, and were born in the 1960s. It also reflects the era of the Intel 386 processor for PC computers which debuted in 1986. I distinctly remember borrowing my college roommates PC laptop in 1986 to write my term papers using WordPerfect software. Wow, that really dates me!

A Cat and A Box

Over the summer, a cat named Shiloh moved into our home. Shiloh's previous home was a one-bedroom apartment, so moving into a home must seem pretty spacious. He readily adapted, claiming certain spots in the home as his own. For example, he likes the flokati rug in the living room, especially when the sun shines through the window to warm it up. He also enjoys the sitting on my lap when I am working on the computer, sleeping on the couch in the television room, chilling on the small rug by the front door, and hiding out in the 1st floor bathtub. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was getting ready to move an old box of art exhibit catalogs and other miscellaneous things from the Still Present Pasts show and placed the box by the kitchen steps which lead to the basement and the side door of the house. Immediately, Shiloh jumped atop this box and claimed it as part of his kingdom. He loved to sit on top and watch what we did in the kitchen. He also would lie down and I caught him a few times staring at his reflection in the mirror located at the bottom of the short steps. Theory of mind at work? Then, the day came for me to move the box.

Shiloh was pretty lonesome in the days following. He would sit in the same location and meow. Like a baby's cry, cats have different meows. This meow was the "I miss my box" kind of meow. It was pretty pathetic and adorable all the same. We tried to substitute the box with an upside down plastic bin, but he didn't like the plastic. I found an old shoe box and tried it, but he got freaked out by the holes on the side, thinking something must be inside the box. I taped up the holes, but it did not fool him. Finally, I got a box of bicycle parts from Rivendell in the mail and placed this empty box in the kitchen. Ah, finally, happiness.

Happy Times: It's the Simple Things

Last night, I had the pleasure to attend with friends Mike/Sarah a concert by the New Pornographers at the legendary First Avenue club. The opening act was Emma Pollock. We were fortunate to get free passes to the show, thanks to our friend Miwa who works for the NP's record label. The overall show rocked. Emma Pollock was first-rate and has a lovely voice and great, tight band. Her songs are winsome and her voice is sweet/velvety. The Pornographers also put on a great show (listen here to one of their songs). They had planned to play in Mpls about half a year ago, but canceled after their bass player had his appendix burst! It was crazy because Mike was supposed to deliver his bass guitar to the guy that day. Fortunately, they came back with Neko Case. They played a nice long set with a 4-song encore.

Then, I had to get up early to see the dentist for a regular check-up/cleaning. I don't have any crazy dentist fears, so it was business as usual. I actually like the dentist because I see it as such a privilege and luxury. Growing up, I didn't go on a regular basis because it was costly and when money is tight, dentistry is low on the priority list. After a meal and doing some revisions, I felt the need for a sugary snack, so I headed to the famed Vendo-Land on the 1st floor of our building. Apparently, our vending machines are famous among grad students from the neighboring Dept of American Studies which is next door. Usually, I just get some Skittles, but I discovered that they now stock Dark Chocolate M&M's!

Yes, sometimes it's these simple things in life that make you happy, especially on a gray/rainy day.

Headshot Polling

Photo 1 on left | Photo 2 on right

I need you help! I recently co-authored a book chapter and was asked to provide a black and white headshot photograph to be published in the edited book, along with a brief bio paragraph. I didn't have a recent photograph and was not wanting to be one of those authors who try to feign youth by using photographs from days gone by. So, I asked our media staffperson to snap a few digital photographs of me. Here are the two best shots.

Blog viewers can pick which one is preferred, so send in your votes by commenting below.

BBQ and Cupcakes :: A Saturday Bike Ride

A couple of weeks ago, I read a City Pages food review by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl about two Saturday only food events - cupcakes by Sheela Namakkal sold at LetterBox in Uptown and barbeque by Big Daddy's sold out of a parking lot in St. Paul at University and Dale. My mouth watered with hunger when reading this review and it inspired me to devise a Saturday Bike Ride with friends to visit these two locales. I sent out an email to see if there was interest. Christopher replied back that the cupcakes would not be available this weekend for some unexplained reason. After a momentary panic, I regrouped and rerouted the trip to make a stop at Cupcake on University Ave (near campus). With the two destinations confirmed, I set about planning the best bicycling route (click here to see the original route).

Saturday turned out to be the most gorgeous Saturday in a long while. It was cool but not cold, no wind, and sunny skies. I decided to ride Yuko (B'stone Eurasia) for this outing. The trip began at noon with two Greenway pick-up stops on Park Ave South (Mike/Kurt) and 18th Ave South (Christopher, Liesl, Erin, Ephraim, and Shannon). Shortly after starting our ride, it was decided that we needed to make a detour to pick up some beverages to help wash down the BBQ. All agreed. We made our way to Cupcake and met up with HW who could not do the full ride because of taiko rehearsal. After sating our appetites, we altered the course to swing by a liquor store and then to Big Daddy's for barbeque.

Liesl, Christopher, and me with our bicycles

Big Daddy's Flintstone Beef Ribs, Pork Ribs, and Pork Rib Tips

Our eyes were much larger than our stomachs. For some reason, we all thought we could each eat half a rack of ribs. Mistake #1. We also thought we could sample all three types of meat in the same quantity. Mistake #2. With about 10 lbs of meat among us, we loaded up our bicycles and made our way to Como Park. Kurt took the lead on this ride, as it was his excellent suggestion to eat our food at the park. And thus, we ate. Sarah joined us after work at the park and partook in the feast. Afterwards, we rested like bloated kings and queens.

Some leftovers

Photo taken by a stranger who walked by and kindly offered to snap it. She is not really shaped like a pyramid

Our return trip was with big smiles on our faces and full stomachs. We decided to ride along Como to the Intercampus Connector path which brought us through the West Bank of campus and back to the bike paths. Christopher led the way home.

In the end, everyone rode about 25 miles with a few of us riding a bit more to make it home. My final mile count was more like 34 miles. Here is a quick mapping of our final route.

Three More Words...

JOURNEY ROCK BLOCK

Shockingly Unshocking! Academics and Athletics

Although the two disciplines/domains start with the same letter (Academics and Athletics) and reside on the same campus, there is apparently a disconnect! Shocking! From the Chronicle of Higher Education comes a new report, titled Faculty Feel 'Disconnected' from College Sports, Think Some Coaches' Salaries are Excessive.

A "striking number" of professors involved in governance at universities with high-profile athletics programs say they are disconnected from and do not know much about the issues facing college sports...

I love the use of "striking" in quotations!

Personally, I am quite attuned to college athletics, just not much about the athletics of the University of Minnesota. Instead, I follow my alma mater - Boston College - whose football team is now ranked #4 in the nation! But I am the kind of fan who has difficulty watching a BC game because the heartbreak of a loss is too much at times. I would rather just read about it in the paper or online than have to endure watching a loss.

Okay, back to crunching numbers and writing papers.

Report: Faculty Feel 'Disconnected' from College Sports, Think Some Coaches' Salaries are Excessive

By LIBBY SANDER

A "striking number" of professors involved in governance at universities with high-profile athletics programs say they are disconnected from and do not know much about the issues facing college sports, according to survey findings released on Tuesday by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

In the nationwide survey of faculty attitudes, 62 percent of the respondents said their universities' athletics programs were structurally separate from academic programs, and 50 percent said decisions about sports on their campus were driven by the needs of the entertainment industry with "minimal regard" for the institutions' academic mission, according to an executive summary describing the poll's findings.

The full report will be released next Monday at the commission's Faculty Summit on Intercollegiate Athletics, in Washington.

Although the survey was designed to focus on the perceptions of professors who are involved in faculty governance or intercollegiate-athletics governance and who have contact with undergraduates, more than a third of the respondents said they were unfamiliar with policies and practices applying to campus athletics and with the financial aspect of athletics.

"The large segment of uninformed faculty is particularly noteworthy," the summary states, because of the sample's design. Professors involved in governance or undergraduate teaching, it says, "would seem more likely than a randomly drawn sample of university faculty to be informed about these issues."

The summary also states that 72 percent of the respondents thought the salaries paid to head football and basketball coaches were excessive, though half also said that their institutions' success in athletics spurred alumni giving to campus programs outside of athletics.

Other key findings in the summary include the following:

* Forty-six percent of faculty members were satisfied with their university president's oversight of athletics, compared with 28 percent who were not.
* Fifty-three percent said they were satisfied with awarding scholarships based on athletic ability, while 31 percent were not.
* Sixty-one percent said athletes were motivated to earn their degrees and keep pace with their peers in the classroom.
* Fifty percent said academic standards did not need to be lowered to achieve success in athletics, although 32 percent said they believed some compromises in academic standards were necessary to succeed in football and basketball.

The survey, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan's Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, analyzes responses from more than 2,000 tenured or tenure-track faculty members at 23 institutions in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I-A.

Reborn! Welcome to the B'stone Stable

As I wrote less than a month ago, I discovered that my beloved mountain bike, the Bridgestone MB-3, was actually a Bridgestone MB-4 (read earlier post here). So, I decided to convert this bike into a single-speed and have since done so. Without further adieu, here is Amnesty, as I like to call her.

Originally equipped with a Ritchey flatbar, a generic ridiculously long stem, the original knobby tires, and a 21-speed (3/7) Shimano STX/Deore drivetrain, I decided to go with a cruiser-style single-speed bike. Out went those parts and in with the Nitto Albatross bars, Nitto Dirt Drop stem, Soma Inverse brake levers, Panaracer TServ tires, Surly Singleator chain tensioner, Surly 36-teeth front chainring and 16-teeth rear cog. I also added the new Planet Bike Cascade plastic fenders, a Planet Bike front/rear light set, and a pair of cork grips with twine and lots of shallac.

CrossMax works part-time at the ALT and graciously donated his time and energy (well, in exchange for a case of PBR) to rebuild the bike. He did a splendid job!

To close out this post, here are a few photographs of the twine job on the handlebar grips, including a bit of cloth tape for an extra hand position, an aerial view of the Albatross bars (they are wide and tall!), and a close-up of the Singleator. Notice how high the bars are positioned, compared to the saddle height. What a comfortable position to ride. Much better than the overstretched position as a mountain bike.

Welcome to the stable, Amnesty; you are reborn and a pleasure to ride.

Art-A-Month :: Reuben Cox

Girl on a Mitsubishi bicycle by Reuben Cox

My first entry in October! Sorry for being gone so long. Things happen, time zooms by. Above is a photograph by my friend's brother-in-law, Reuben Cox. Reuben is an amazing professional photographer who lives in NYC. I posted this particular photograph because I recently purchased a print as part of my "Art-A-Month" effort. I love the overall framing of the shot, the saturation of colors, the busy background of bicycles, motorcycles, and pedestrians, and the beautiful mixte bicycle frame upon which she sits, idly reading.

Keep Art Alive.

AAM began over a year ago and I have not been faithful to the cause. In this time frame, I have purchased only 5 pieces of art, including paintings from my father, photographs by Wing Young Huie and Peter Haakon Thompson, and another piece of art by a local MCAD professor whose name escapes me at the moment (sorry!). Part of the challenge has been raising/saving enough funds, but the other issue is the cost for framing. It's sometimes as much as the piece of art itself! Still, I persist and I hope to host a showing once I collect 12 pieces of art. I think it would be a great way to promote my friends' art and to hopefully help them make a sale!

Some artists to keep in mind for future purchases -- Paul Linden, Kari Reardon, and Mike Hoyt. I actually own a watercolor painting by Mike but I want another one!