Dorothy Imagire Grandmother, Motherwell, and Me Digital Print from scanned grandmother’s calligraphy www.dorothyimagire.org What are our artistic influences? How much of what we are comes from our upbringing, or does it come from our education? Does the fact that an uncle was a beatnik matter? Is it because your father took you to museums that showed Kline and Motherwell the influence? Or is it because grandmother’s scroll hung in the tearoom? Does my childhood love of 20th century art in the U.S. affect my present day aesthetics? Or is it because I have been attending a Zen monastery in upstate New York? I scanned in my grandmother Shizu Imagire’s calligraphy. This piece is constructed to look like the Abstract Expressionists. The red chop is from her scroll. I hope grandmother Shizu approves of my work enough to have signed it.