I was one of those extremely privileged kids who got to grow up running barefooted and free in the tropical paradise of the Philippine Islands. While my linguist parents worked tirelessly to bring written language into the outlying tribal areas, I was busy climbing mango, papaya, and guava trees, collecting rare beetles, bugs, and butterflies, shooting rapids, hiking lush mountains and dreaming of the day when Tarzan would swing through the jungle to carry me off to my dream tree-house! He never did, but I still believed the whole world was mine to explore. I believed that everything and everyone in it was beautiful. While I carried this view with me upon our return to the US, the tangled vines of life slowly covered it over until I could barely remember the child who once believed such wonder-full things. And then I began to paint...
I pray that, somehow, in some small or profound way, my paintings open your inner sight and help you journey with me back to that place of childlike faith where you, too, can believe.
— Kathy Bailey