“In the late 1980s, I returned to making art after a hiatus of more than a decade. In 1990, the Arts Center of St. Petersburg—as the Morean was known at the time—accepted me into my first juried show in fifteen years, sponsored by Southeast Bank. The center treated me like a professional—something not everyone or every place did at the time—and the encouragement that I received from the Arts Center staff and patrons inspired me to keep making art ever since.”