One day I was looking out of my studio window daydreaming. I had a canvas that I had made and it was blank. There is nothing more scary to me than a blank canvas. As I was looking at the mountains ideas came and went, came and went. Then a vague idea started to form. A river crashing through the desert with mountains in the background. I got my pallet knives and started to work. This painting is of a section of the Rio Grande between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico looking south by southwest at the Jimenez mountains. I call it long ago because there is not so much water in it today.