And Antonin Artaud agreed when he wrote that he didn't want to meet hmself in his poetry. I paint keenly poised to receive the nuanced messages the paintings themselves suggest. I am at times driven and fevered with the business of galloping after their demands, or dull with a staring trance that fumbles for a thread. Although subtly aware of myself, my styles, and my strokes. I recognize my attack as merely a tool to the work's end. Indeed, I see less myself in the beings of these works and more their rugged need to be just what they are.

- Micaela Gardner

I thought the definition of "artist" was huge ego. I guess sometimes it is, but usually in the creative zone, where I am making something. I feel like I'm either a conduit from a source, or from God, or from an artist that has passed. Recently I've been making a hundred and one bulls and a hundred and one horses out of ceramics - not typically my medium. These pieces are influenced by the late ceramist, Beatrice Woods. While my hands are on the clay, I feel her presence. All the Native American work I've done in the last several years has been channeling messages on Chumash land, usually under a large tree that was indigenous to the Chumash. And in years past when working with angels and goddess icons, I felt that I was receiving visions from the source. In terms of humility, I am forced to be humble in those quiet times of prayer, meditation and listening.

- Bobbi Bennett