In March 2022, I had started painting …

something I had not done since applying to the MFA graduate program at UC Irvine 50+ years ago. In retreat from COVID, living in the country and more or less counting blessings, I did not miss the city but I missed friends and began to think that if I made paintings for them it would hold us together in some way. The first nine were titled Second Spring of Covid #1 - #9 (shown below) and all given to friends. The paintings that followed the masks were increasingly about landscapes beyond Covid.