When I was only three, I was already snow-obsessed. So my mother took me on a bus all the way to my grandmother's home in North Carolina that Christmas in hopes we would see snow. Or course there was no snow in North Carolina - but, miracle of miracles, it snowed at home in Houston while we were gone, and I can still remember the melting snowman my sister made for me that was the only evidence of the Texas snow. I've dreamed of snow ever since. So when I moved to Arkansas from Texas about 15 years ago, I was thrilled at the prospect of real winters with lots of snow. And snow it has. Down on our little road that runs along the lake under a tree-covered bluff line, we get the best of winter: snow of great variety and depth that usually doesn't last too long. I am always out tramping around, taking photographs, playing with the dog, looking and looking. All these paintings are within about a mile of my house.