A few years before I met Alex, my friends and I were hiking on the ranch where one of them lived. It was a beautiful 8,000 acre place where scientists sometimes come to check on endangered birds and wildflowers. It is just an amazing piece of land. We came to a ravine where there were large bolders flowing down into a grassy area. We were remarking how beautiful it was, and my friend said that she always imagined it as a grotto of some sort. We agreed that it should be a shrine, and we came up with possibilities, some serious and some in jest, when I mentioned,"How about a shrine to the handsome prince?" Which got everyone going on the offerings we as women could bring there. The list included all the things women do to get and keep a man. Soon we were doubled over laughing like pubescent girls in a giggling contest. But, the ideas stuck for me, and soon afterward, I created a show for a gallery called "Shrine to the Handsome Prince" which consisted of a shrine with a large mirror in the center, and things that women do to keep a man ie. fancy underware, make-up and beauty aids, uncomfortable clothes, cookbooks, cleaning tools, etc. At the same time lining the walls, was a group of watercolors with the princess doing things like hanging up the frogs clothes and the frog reading the paper.

Since that time, there have been a number of things in the princess /frog theme in our lives, by some amazing syncronicity. However, in this canvas, I thought I would reverse the humor a little, since the water was so conveniently there.

I see this drawing as important because it was Alex's first start for me to respond to.