Experience is a piece that earned its name. Dense layers of white marks weave through blues, reds, and blacks—each one the result of years spent scraping, finishing, and scraping again. This painting taught me as much as I taught it.

I worked on this canvas for years, never quite satisfied, never quite ready to let it go. Layer after layer, I’d think it was done, only to scrape it away and start again. The piece couldn’t have been finished without all that struggle—and I couldn’t have known it was finished without the experience of making it.It’s one of those rare paintings where the title says everything. Experience isn’t just what the piece is about. It’s what it took to make it.