My yearly trek to Mexico provides the inspiration for this series. When there, I live in a traditional Mexican neighborhood. I am immersed in lively music, noisy family doings, spicy cooking scents, feral dogs nosily barking and roosters, crowing all hours of the day. The sky is bright blue, the air, hot and dry. Colorful houses line the dirt roads. All these elements influence what I paint.

My process combines layers of paint, papers and medium until I see images form and a story emerge. I finished the first five paintings during my 2019 stay. I chose to stretch and tack them on the face of the frames. This is in keeping with the primitive nature of the pieces and to suggest the repurposing and recycling that I witnessed in Mexico. The last two paintings were completed in Portland and are more traditionally stretched, although no less a part of the series.