My late, dear friend Chandra was meditating one day. Someone asked, "what's in the soul?" She whispered: "velvet......and......sand......" This is what she meant: That the soul's all softness & caress (velvet), and it stretches forever with the voice of the ages (sand): Softness & vastness, deep & majestic...that's what I feel from Nancy... I found Nancy's art--ie Gaiadriel (here)--and immediately I felt that presence. It isn't just her fractals--which range from landscapes to abstracts to everything else--it's her soul. I was stunned at how much intensity she infused into the smallest places; that she articulated open spaces with such intimate detail; that she illuminated energy itself--inner energy, soulful energy: that she made it all visible. Even her jewel-like pieces--where fractals look like the prototype for every crystalline-form on earth--have her ever-modulated dance, her intimacy, her love. Occasionally she'll write a poem too, and it'll affirm everything she's just painted... I can't quite explain my images, Nancy: Are they softness & vastness--I don't know! But I feel that images, for you, are like sending your children into the world bedecked with ancient jewels; and while I don't know you well as a person, through your art I've seen an ocean of love & compassion, 'velvet & sand', and offerings from the depths of a rapturous heart, and for that I am deeply grateful...