As a single Caucasian female, born in Peoria, Illinois and raised in nearby Pekin, I did not know the taste of success until I made it to St. Louis. I defied the statistics by getting both an undergraduate and a graduate degree as the youngest female child of first generation parents - neither with high school or college diplomas. Producing and hosting the Crystal Set Feminist News and Transmissions from Ceiling Zero Call-in Talk on two separate public radio stations gave me the taste of success again. Then the Saint Louis University Department of Psychiatry, within the Medical School under Academic and Research, hired me as a Mental Health Specialist and a Consultation-Liaison Psychiatric Social Worker. Serving on their School of Social Service Health Curriculum Board, I developed, taught and tasted success again in Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Prior to working at the Central Illinois Agency on Aging, Social Work PRN used me as a contractor, full-time and part-time. I also maintained a successful private practice spanning over twenty years. It's a pocket-full of lessons and a mouthful of pride that sat me on this course. Being born with a tarnished silver spoon in my mouth, my life lessons took that away, handing me a spork. Hard living and hard loving but painting softly gives me a dynamic psyche. Otherwise I'd be at a significant loss. No matter how hard I try to paint otherwise, I'm incessant pulled to painting portraits or studying souls. I've lived in Pekin just a fraction longer than I lived in St. Louis where I've worked for over twenty years as a clinical social worker, radio & television broadcaster and artist combined. Always working from within the microcosm and macrocosm to set the stage for what I choose to create. The message transcends societal norms.