brought home sketchpads and an endless supply of watercolor paper.  I turned his garage into my art studio, and experimented with squares and circles and cones.  Since I still didn't navigate around the house very well, I pictured the rooms in my mind and drew the spaces on paper, like a map.  My drawings helped me find my way.  Al read me books on the Renaissance, Impressionism, famous artists.  "Listen to this," he said one evening.  "Picasso said he spent his life learning to draw like a child."  I had to laugh.  "If it's good enough for Picasso," I said, "I guess it will have to be good enough for me."      One day I finished a watercolor that was more than swirls and shapes.  It was a picture of four colored jars - my first real composition.  Al studied it silently.	"It's good Lisa," he said finally.  "Really good.  You have talent."       Did he mean it?  An artist should be able to evaluate her own work, but I couldn't.  Still, I didn't want to give up.  Painting was spontaneous.  There were no risks, because I couldn't judge the outcome.  "What else would you like to paint?" Al asked.  After a moment, I realized what I wanted.  "I'll paint what I see in my mind.  I'm not blind there."      I started with landscapes, the Texas countryside I remembered so well.  I painted flowers, like the bluebonnets that pop up everywhere in spring.  Eventually, Al lost his garage because I produced so much work!  That's when he decided to enter my paintings in an art fair in Fort Worth.  We rented a tent, and Al displayed my paintings.  A picture of roosters, "California Bantams," was
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