One morning in June, I opened the following email message from Roy M.:

"I have a horse farm here in Maryland and have taken several pictures ... that I’d like to mail to you. I’d like to run an idea by you to consider. Each year on Halloween we have a costume contest at the barn for the horses. If you go to my website and click on “events.” you’ll get some idea of the costumes. My idea is to commission a painting of the barn and incorporate some generic images of horses in costume, nothing too specific because while I intend to keep the original painting for myself, I’d like to use a print of the original as a prize in this year's contest. Does this sound feasible to you? I look at your work and see that you can do virtually anything, but as an artist I’m sure the “spirit” (pardon the pun) must appeal to you as well."

Well, the spirit certainly did move me, and after an initial sketch and several minor revisions, I created the painting you see here. By all accounts, it's now one of the most unusual paintings in my portfolio! It was, at the time I did it, one of my largest.

I carefully crated and shipped his painting in September, along with the additional prints he'd ordered. I received the following message reached me a few days later: