They say research is what you do when you don't know what you are doing. I come home from the library once a week with an armload of books. When you are painting paint, there is no use for formal research because you are doing it on canvas. Marks, scratches, shapes come from some hidden place in the back of my brain. Now that I am working on painting "something", I need to gather images for reference. I have, so far, come up with a way of painting simple scenes that look like nineteen fifties illustrations. I use this as an excuse to focus on material. I brought home my first piece last night. An abstract overlaid with a swooping scissor tail that has a yellow ochre branch behind it. Shannon responded "its nice, is it finished", so I smashed it over her head. No, really she was right, It needs just a little more work.