First I made a squaring table out of an old butcher block and two pieces of scrap wood.  I found a small piece of wood in the wood pile, just enough to make a small frame.  I cut the lengths, and squared them up in my new tool.  From an old, weathered outdoor table, that stood as long as it possibly could, and then gave out, I cut the inside flat frame that the canvas would eventually be mounted on.  This fit (squarely of course, because I used my new homemade tool) inside the frame.  I measured another piece of scrap wood, cut to size, to make the mounting frame for the canvas.  I cut an old piece of tarp and stretched it around the mounting frame.  I checked to make sure it fit inside the frame, then gessoed the canvas.  Then she arrived, first in my heart, then my head, then in my fingers, through the brushes, onto the canvas.  She was now something, someone.  Not a scrap, not a throw-away, but a life.  A beautiful life that lived in my heart, and now in the world.  I drilled holes in the once table and secured her to her new frame.  She deserved a frame.  This lovely soul was meant to be seen.  She came from nothing, (and don’t we all), (or is it everything?).  And here she is.  Leaving a hole of melancholy in my heart, like after a good book read, I know that space can only be filled by creating something else.  And so I begin.