This is a piece with the background fashioned after my obsessions with river rock patterns—the black-winged tangier and cattails are derived from photos I took kayaking through cattails on an eastern Montana Lake; they really gave me a show. I am sure more paintings like this are to come. The water was low, and you could see the higher levels of water-stained on the bank in white horizontal lines around the lake. It made me picture prehistoric bodies of water laying layers of evidence of the past diversity of life they must have supported. I wonder what this day's layer will look like when it is formed to stone.

The painting is on recycled building material and painted with upcycled leftover house paints, stains, and plasters from my past work as a house painter and decorative artist. It has matt sparkly sanded sheen from a plaster called luna with bitts of gold ketching the light throughout the work.