As I write, as I connect with my past, writer friends and readers of my Japan Times articles of long ago are reconnecting. Thank you Margaret Stawowy for pointing out the connection between my art and the autobiographical watercolor paintings of Charlotte Salomon, a gifted young painter who perished in the Auschwitz gas chamber. I wrote this article 24 years and one week ago. At the time I was a passionate art reviewer but I had not passion at all for making art myself. Did Charlotte’s art plant a seed? Maybe so. I was looking at so much art over the 16 years I wrote art reviews that it’s hard to say. But surely our style of working is very similar. I am quite sure from looking at the art here that she sometimes had her subject before her eyes, as I do, but she wasn’t looking at the sketchpaper. RIP Charlotte. And thank you Margaret for stirring in me memory of long ago.