"Gullah Woman with Bird" is both a celebration of life and a tribute to the Gullah Geechee culture of South Carolina and Georgia. The woman herself is not real, although I did work from sketches I jotted down after seeing a group of Gullah women dancing at a Lowcountry gathering. The bold colors of their clothes, the elaborate scarves that encircled their heads, the grace of their moves elicited in me a feeling of pure joy. And why shouldn't these people feel joy? Their culture has endured for centuries through kidnapping, enslavement, civil war, isolation, and poverty, emerging today as survivors of the worst history had to offer. While I was working at my easel, a bird flew in and asked to be part of the painting. Or perhaps I only imagined that he did. Free and colorful as he was, he may have recognized a kindred spirit. What could I say? I put him in.