Some friends from Missoula stayed over recently and wanted to see some of my work. My reserves are dwindling and so I took then into the basement to look through some boxes of old paintings. After uncovering and dusting off a bunch of paintings they picked out one they wished to keep. Ellen wanted to keep some of the beautiful copper pipe earrings our friend Beth makes, and so we made a trade. But just giving a friend an old painting from the basement didn’t seem right, so I ask if I could spruce it up and mail it out to her. She obliged and this is what followed.  It was just the kick in the pants I needed to get motivated to resolve a stack of old paintings.