I came across this piece in my archives from several years back with a title, Given to the Wind, that I’ve used on a couple of paintings over the years. The composition is also similar in it’s basic design to a number of pieces of mine, particularly from the time that this piece was completed, around 2004.
I’ve overlooked this painting a number of times when I’ve been scanning my records, not giving it much mind. Maybe the shape and ratio of it in my thumbnails didn’t allow me to see it as well as I would like. But yesterday when I came across this, it was like seeing it for the first time, which for me is an odd thing. I was really pleased with it, really felt it had a fullness, a sense of completion in all ways. It was one of those pieces that didn’t stand out in my memory and didn’t live with me very long, having sold very quickly at a gallery, yet when I saw it made me very proud to call it my work.
I don’t know what I’m trying to say with this. Sometimes I stumble upon something I’ve forgotten and am pleased to discover that it’s mine, pleased that it’s out there somewhere in someone else’s life. I hope they are as pleased with this as I am.
Given that there is a guitar in this piece, I suppose I’ll have a little Monday music. This is Red Clay Halo from one of my favorites, Gillian Welch. As she says, it’s a song about dirt. I’ve always fancied myself a dirt man so this fits, although the clay around here is stony gray.
Redtree Times 
A few years ago now Erin and I brought along to one of the June Principle Gallery shows a small painting we had purchased much earlier – our first of your work – with the intent of asking you to personalize it for us. It was very special for us to witness that glimmer of recognition of a painting you had not seen for a long time, a reunion not unlike seeing someone quite unexpectedly you once knew very well. The piece already has a lot of meaningful connotations for us that edges out its competitors as our favorite, but that moment was the icing on the cake for us!
Thanks, Noah. I’ve had the opportunity you’ve described several times, where I have ran across work that I hadn’t seen for years. I am always pleased and surprised. I am pleased that the work has held up so well and really translates as well as I had hoped. The surprise comes from the feeling that I have, that my work is part of a continuum that is gradually improving over time. Thinking that way would make one believe that earlier work is somehow less, not quite as evolved. So when I see these earlier pieces I am surprised at how wrong I am and how, though different, they are, at least, the equals of my current work.
All my best to Erin and you!