Fresh Cut was painted in Santa Fe, just after I’d taught a six-day Fearless Abstraction workshop to nine incredible advanced painters. The studio still hummed with the energy we’d created together.

One evening, invited to dinner with little more than my painting clothes on hand, I pulled on black pants and a light periwinkle shirt—too long to feel right. Out came my canvas scissors, and ten inches were gone.

The next day, a piece of that freshly cut fabric found its place on my canvas, changing the painting in an unexpected way. Inspiration often arrives quietly, in the simplest of moments.