On old Highway 99 north of Ashland is a used-car lot modestly called Jim’s Better Buys. It has been there so long that nearly everyone in Southern Oregon knows someone who has bought a car or truck there.
One day in 1996 I drove past the lot at sunset and wondered, “What if that were the Andromeda Galaxy behind those vehicles, instead of the setting sun?” My first painting was a very large watercolor, and it sold so fast that I found myself rather missing it. So I painted the subject again, in acrylic on canvas.
Our valiant local station, Jefferson Public Radio, was doing a fundraiser, and I gave them the rights to reproduce the image on mugs as a thank-you gift to donors. The mugs were a huge hit, and I have sold more cards and prints of this image than of any other painting I’ve done.
The original acrylic is in the collection of my very dear friend and lawyer, Larry Evans, in Valparaiso, Indiana.
