On top of Sonoma Mountain, Julie's garden is full of color and life. I like to paint it in the autumn, winter, spring, summer, morning, afternoon, anytime. Last year I painted this same scene in the summer, but from inside the fence and gate. It was called "Agnieszka's Garden", and the painting went on to be shown in the Attleboro Museum in Massachusetts as part of a national painting exhibition. The original painting was just sold to a couple living in Santa Barbara, who used to live in Glen Ellen and have fond memories of Sonoma Mountain Road. Including "Julie's Garden" I have painted this garden 5 times with more to come.

In this garden, there are many beds of flowers and vegetables and grass and weeds looking overwhelmingly complex. But I have a propensity lately for seeing through hopelessly unclear situations and forcing sense and order into them. I try to forget what objects are before me and instead see shapes and color and light. Stroke by stroke, my brush transforms the space onto the canvas.

I'm never completely happy with my paintings until months later, and sometimes not then. Time makes the eye forgiving and the mind accepting.