20x24”. Oil on Canvas. 2011

Valley View, a 190-acre nature preserve in Milford, Ohio, is a Mecca for local landscape painters. When I traveled there one July afternoon to put in a final day on this picture, I discovered to my shock that tiny insects had taken over the grass where I stood. They’d bounce onto my legs, give me a stinging bite, and scram before I could smack them. Unfortunately, I was wearing flipflops and shorts.

I decided I could put up with it for fifteen minutes. So I squeezed out a lot of paint and worked like a whirling dervish for a quarter hour, then packed up, without looking at the result.

Maybe there’s something to be said for working fast, and unselfconsciously.