Red isn’t a color I usually let into my garden or my studio palette. I don’t even wear red. I lean toward pinks, purples, and pale yellows. Choosing what to paint and how to paint it is how I always set myself a challenge for what I create, a way to push into something unfamiliar rather than repeat what already feels safe. This bright red Dahlia, a gift I hadn’t chosen for myself, was that challenge this time. I stood at the easel some days genuinely unsettled by the brazenness of the color, until I put on my recording of the Three Tenors singing Nessun Dorma and played it over and over until the painting finally came together. I signed it with real relief that the passion of the Tenors and of myself had come through.