Still Life Paintings (1999 - 2013) - While in Paris, Dégas' close friend Giovanni Boldini painted a still life on a canvas that measured 47 1/4 inches high by 15 1/4 inches wide. This narrow canvas that stretches to nearly four feet in height was probably meant to evoke a Japanese screen or scroll. On it he painted a glass of red wine just emptied, the residue barely visible at the bottom of the glass and a stack of Old Paris plates, white porcelain with gold trim that casts a celadon shadow. On one of the plates, there is a silver bowl lined with glowing gold. Another plate is strewn with apricots and figs, their skin is the same green hue as the plate's shadow, only darker; the inside is the shape of an almond, only white. Faintly in the shadow falling diagonally across this unusual expanse of canvas -- so tall and narrow, -- one can see an embroidered "D" on the tablecloth, perhaps for Dégas.

As soon as I saw this painting in a coffee table book of still lifes, I knew that this was what I wanted to paint. I wanted to paint that painting, or rather a painting of that size, that composition, that beauty. So, I plunked down the $125 and hefted the book into my arms and carried it home to my small apartment. In my career as an artist, the muses often contacted me in this manner -- leaping from a page in a book -- or jumping off the wall.