It was somehow important to me to be honest in what we do, and to love what it is we paint.  These were lessons given to me by other artists, obviously.  To do what you love, or are interested in, or have some regard for.  And it seems to me that it’s easy to overlook what we spend our majority of time doing, and that’s an intimate association with everyday things: putting on our shoes, tying our ties, eating our breakfast, cooking our meals, washing our dishes. Somehow that ongoing human activity seems to me very much worth doing.  It’s only when we become presumptive, I think — to think we’re better than that, and we’d like to be, and should think of ourselves being better — that we begin to ignore those things.  But in a wonderful way, children really remind us of it.  They go to the gumball machines with their little penny and put it in and say, “Look, Dad!” Look what came out of this terrible-looking thing, this magenta sweet little whirl of wonder.  And that, to me, is as good as we get.