Emily Lisker and Nin Andrews

My old friend Emily Lisker, a great artist, painter, illustrator, saxophonist and writer, is collaborating with the poet Nin Andrews, who is posting poems inspred by Emily’s paintings. You can find them here: http://ninandrewswriter.blogspot.com/. Emily’s website is in my links, and once there you will find links to her paintings, or read her great recipes. Emily and I have been friends since high school. Incredibly, we go decades without meeting, but have been corresponding by mail, and now email, for 30 years. Whenever I give up hope, for art, for the country, for life and the world, she reminds me that art, and love, and doing stuff (swimming with dogs in a cold pond, making rhubarb sauce, watching the neighbors fight),  are in some way redemptive. The decision to live a life of art and thinking, instead one of servitude and acquisition, is the right one, no matter how insanely stupid it sometimes feels. And she lives in a great big wreck of a house, just like I do.