Art & Love
My Life Illuminated in Egg Tempera

Art & Love: My Life Illuminated in Egg Tempera“She paints the world she knows—taboo, tender, and utterlyalive.”Art & Love is an intimate, unflinchingmemoir of an artist’s life shaped by the counterculture of the Sixtiesand beyond, devotion to craft, and the quest for mastery andlasting love.In the face of self-doubt and romantic intrigue, the author commits herselfto the demanding practice of egg tempera painting—a rare art form she considersher artistic soul.Her journey moves through communal living that ranges from the benign to thecult-like, and forays into San Francisco’s sex underground. In the 1980s, herwork as a nurse during the AIDS epidemic becomes a defining force in the book,inspiring frank visual and narrative depictions of death and dying, intimacy,and bodily experience that will resonate most with unsqueamishreaders.Luminous artwork appears throughout the book, documenting the passage oftime and adding a rich visual layer to the narrative. As the author’s growth asan artist unfolds, her pursuit of egg tempera painting becomes a metaphor forthe resilience and self-discovery that sustain a creative life.