The photograph work from fifty years back, the patience of keeping those negatives safe all that time and then finding your way into them with pastel, that's a kind of archive most of us never build. Steel gray paper under Rembrandt soft takes guts. I've seen pastel go muddy on a mid-tone ground when the darks don't land clean, and getting a background to sit right without overpowering the figures is harder than it looks from the front of the room.

Pastel work sourced from photographs you shot half a century ago in your own town, that's a quiet kind of devotion to a place and a moment. The uneven background you're calling out might be the thing that keeps it from feeling too finished, too resolved. Sometimes the pieces we doubt are the ones doing something we haven't figured out how to name yet.

Thank you for the note, Devon. I think you are correct.

Yes, Devon, I agree. Backgrounds can be surprisingly difficult. How much attention should you give them. I regret it's a balance I often fail to achieve.

Thank you, Eamon. Kind of you to note.