The summer of 2020 we drove from Los Angeles to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, and back. I had been teaching on Zoom for nine months, so staring out the car window was pure liberation. At first I wanted to grasp everything and focus on what we were driving through. After a few days my eyes and brain wanted a break. The exercise became that of a painter, creating well composed lines, shapes and colors, letting them smear across the canvas.