Dearest family, I hope this doesn't freak you out, but my best friend Val and I have applied to Art Everywhere, a program that displays art in vacant store fronts along Granby Street in downtown Norfolk. Well, that's not the part that would freak you out. It's that the art installation we're proposing is...weird. It's what my dad would call "Artsy-Fartsy." You know what? We don't care. We had a blast coming up with it, and if it's chosen for one of the thirty-odd displays, we'll have an even better time bringing our vision to life. Also, I listed this web site on the applications, so dearest selection committee: welcome!In case you're wondering just what Val and I proposed, here it is:
Art Everywhere Proposal: Dar a Luz – To Bring to Light
I met Valerie Joplin in Storm Lake, Iowa in 1998 when we were teens. Art has been a fundamental aspect of our friendship ever since.
We have shared favorite artworks, poems and literature and advised each other on ways to improve our own work, despite constantly living far apart.
Art|Everywhere has provided us with an inspiring opportunity to collaborate. When I called Val in Hawaii to invite her to apply with me, her response was an exuberant, “Yes!” We have since been collaborating via cell phone, Facebook and Skype from distant points of America (although Val would come to Virginia to execute our project, if selected).
In visual art, my specialties are photography and photo-collages with a quilt motif. Val specializes in surreal photography, paintings and collages that use dream imagery and sensual metaphors.
We are intrigued by Art|Everywhere’s unique opportunities regarding scale and natural light, as well as its focus on transformation. The result is our proposed installation, “Dar a Luz - To Bring to Light.” The title is the Spanish term for childbirth and its literal English translation. The primary image of our work is an unsentimental, pixilated image of 
a pregnant woman surrounded by a multimedia mosaic, including tempura, watercolor, acrylic and mirror panels.
Because the woman is pixilated, she can only be seen properly from a distance.
However, other elements of our work will only be visible up close. For example, Val has developed a technique that involves removing some of the silvering from the back of mirrors, revealing translucent images behind the glass and allowing light to shine through. Thus, the smaller 
images are only visible when a viewer gets close and peers into the mirrors.
Our installment would be loosely divided into three sections: the first a large photo quilt that dissolves into the second, a dreamy mosaic centered on the pixilated image of a pregnant woman. This image would ebb into the third section, which
emphasizes empty space and will also feature an enzo, a Zen koan that emphasizes the question: “Where does a circle begin?” which begs the deeper question, “Where does transformation begin?” For us the answer is: it begins inside, as all things do.
Our work will be six or seven feet tall and use the entire length of a window. Any ground-level space would work well.
And honestly, if Val and I were chosen, we would have a ball with this project. We haven't seen each other since I was living in Spanish Harlem, I think, which was probably five years ago? And I honestly think we would rock it! It would be unlike anything anyone else has done, and attention-grabbing. Not everyone would like it, but it would make people think. It would be crazy gorgeous. Emphasis on the crazy? Not really. It's unusual, but the whole point of art is to look at the world in new, beautiful ways. If nothing else, this experiment has done that for me. It's good to have a fresh pair of eyes.
