Some places stay with you not because of what you did there, but because of how you felt — the particular quality of the light, the stillness of the water, the sense that nothing needed to happen and nothing did. This painting is my attempt to hold on to one such place. A calm lake fills the foreground, small boats resting quietly on its surface, the mountains reflected in the water below as much as rising above it. The scene is balanced, unhurried, painted in watercolor on paper at 10 × 14 inches with colors kept deliberately soft — cool greens and blues that invite the eye to settle rather than search. It is a painting born from a memory of travel, from a moment when time stood still long enough for me to actually notice it.