"Growing up, I spent many summers on road trips with my family, driving for days from Texas to see cousins in California or my grandparents in Pennsylvania. I marveled at how we could drive for hours without hitting a large town or city. The views from these trips, of long stretches of highway across vast plains, seemed to be etched into my memory. In April I was back in Texas, and made a last-minute decision to take a road trip up to Arkansas to try to catch a glimpse of the total solar eclipse (it worked!). On the way back, an immense storm was coming in, and the landscape was dwarfed by deep blue storm clouds. The view inspired this painting, capturing the moment right before it started pouring down rain."