This is the first of a series of journal-like drawings created during an artist residency in southwestern France. It was created by first pasting the pages of a daily village newspaper to the studio floor and then coating it with several layers of gesso leaving it to dry overnight.  The next morning the stiffened paper was carried through the convent and laid down on the floors, walls and even the convent’s altar, to make rubbings with charcoal. Literally and figuratively then, these drawings serve as  a portrait of those who lived in the convent. The utensils in this drawing were the last artifacts left by the many generations of nuns who lived in the building. They serve as tangible “ghosts” representing the hard-working hands of this remote women’s sect.