1117 Center of the Storm sent this in through the SOTM Flickr group. He wrote: “okay so lets see, the picture was taken in los(t) angeles.

“the quote/saying was said to me, way back in high school by my art teacher, whose class i never took. i was a graffiti artist and somehow word got around to her that i was 'somebody', whose art she had seen around the streets of our school.

"she began to mentor me, because as she saw it, she didnt want my talent to go to waste by me ending up in jail or worse, shot in the streets. i went through a phase, like every other writer, where i really could not come up with anything

“haaa....i hit the 'send this' button by mistake... sorry... so she mentored me, and one day in her classroom, she told me, you know, and she made it very conversational, not as an actual quote or saying she was giving me, but she very intricately snuck it in...she said, ‘you know, art must not not always dependent upon existing realism.’

"she said, paint what is not there, paint what people want to say or what is 'inside' their minds, better yet, paint what's inside yours, not what you see...

“so there you have it.... long story short...”