There’s something about a road trip that resets my creative eye.

Ray recently acquired a new truck and drove it back from Northern Idaho. I flew up to Portland to meet him, and together we took the long and beautiful route home to Ojai, stopping in Bend, Mount Shasta, Winters, and Cambria along the way. Each place offered a different landscape, light, and rhythm and plenty of reasons to stop, wander, and look.

Lately, I find myself more captivated by flowers than ever. I’m looking beyond their obvious beauty and noticing their structure: the architecture of petals, the repetition of shapes, unexpected color combinations, and that wonderful balance between order and wildness. Sometimes their vibrance feels almost impossible. All of it is finding its way back into the studio.

Of course, once I begin to paint, I forget most of what I’ve consciously observed. But perhaps that’s the point. Those impressions settle somewhere beneath the surface and become part of the impulse to create.

It feels good to be home in Ojai, with a camera full of images, a head full of color, and plenty of new ideas waiting to become something.