I have been painting, I confess, and if this writing were any later this essay would have been February's. I thought of not writing it, taking the month off. It was my birthday. The holidays were too much. But, last month's essay, beginning "the year is nearly over" or something like that has to go. It's 2001. I remember an Industrial Design class at Purdue. My professor was talking about a friend of his who was a designer on the set of the movie, which was just about to open. He said it would be like nothing we had ever seen. Actually, its depiction of how things would be in 2001 was completely believable and, the monolith aside, practically expected. It's not quite the same now that we are here. We haven't advanced technologically quite as far as was predicted. Hal doesn't quite exist. However, I am talking into this machine that is typing this before my eyes. I have always prayed for the day this machine would be available. I'm now praying that it will indeed, as its inventors say, get smarter and smarter, and microphones get better and more selective. My fondest actions " kill two birds with one stone". Nothing would be better than the ability to prattle into space while working and have every word captured flawlessly, perhaps even edited. Did you know Napoleon is reported to have had 14 secretaries and the ability to dictate to them all simultaneously? Not being Napoleon, I confess the realization that this program existed gave me the confidence to take on this web page. The thought, when considered in totality, of these writings on a monthly basis is challenging, to say the least. I thought of ways to organize it. How do you organize a lifetime's work? Chronologically? Technically? I'm afraid it's going to be" ad hoc". To this I would like to address the following point. The discussion of Art requires a certain vocabulary without it things can become vague and We shall discuss this vocabulary here to begin with, though not in this essay. I think you'll find especially when we discuss the elements of composition that your ability to judge what makes a piece of visual art good will be enhanced. The Gladstone Eyre painting I referred to in last month's essay as one I had recently acquired for restoration is nearly ready for presentation. We look forward to putting it and several other wonderful pieces in the gallery when we get the next part of this Dreamweaver program under our belt. We solicit your patience, and look forward to making this site more dynamic through this coming year.

Steve B. Lance