I don’t just paint the Matilija poppies because they are pretty. I paint them because they are in front of me, along with everything else. They grow in the mountains but also alongside the concrete river and paved highway, next to tents and garbage, and striking union writers in my home town. They burst open amongst the June gloom days of Southern California and visualize the wind with their huge flighty petals as they sway and reach for the sky giving me a sense of belonging to the natural world and a respite from modern life for the moments I’m out there plein air painting.