Cassandra Barney

In the middle of the night I lay in bed awake thinking about how selfishly appealing it sounds to create a world like Henry Darger, and live in it. I would write my own story and paint my own world. It would be a place where I could float in golden honey sadness or grow a cerulean blue garden . The more I thought, it seemed to me that sanity is a sacrifice.

Today in the studio, after reluctantly choosing sanity, I couldn't decide which painting to finish so I started another about a mermaid on a stage. I think mermaids are so beautifully tragic. On stage though it might just be a role played by a girl. The mermaid I painted doesn't look very sad, she's posed very comfortably in a shell. We'll see where this painting goes.