My awesome father called me yesterday from my aunt's house in Colorado Springs so I could talk to all the family who gathered there for the Fourth of July ( Alex and I celebrated from our balcony with a number of our friends).

I was excited to tell my grandmother that I am painting again. She was a mighty talented and terribly prolific painter when she had the sight and the steady hand for it. The households of her three children are full of her paintings. And I own six of my own, that she made just for me.

"I'm painting again," I told her.

"You are? Wonderful! Where?"

I paused for a second, remembering that she painted with other painters on a regular basis when all of us lived in Grand Junction, Colo. a decade ago.

"Oh. Here," I said, explaining about the peace and quiet and great light in the apartment.

My grandmother told me how the more you paint and the more patient and quiet you become, the more you can "just feel" how to make your paintings better and better.

I also told my friend Bill McCabe, who I used to work with in Parker, about painting again. I was excited about the five little greeting cards I painted and how Danny Gregory's book inspired them. Here's what I said about the experience in an e-mail to Bill: