In August, shortly after I had begun setting up my studio in Byron, Wyoming I received a call from Lucinda Greer, an executive from Marathon Oil Company whose office is in Cody. She wanted me to do a painting or paintings that would represent the history of Marathon Oil in Wyoming over the last 100 years.

I felt I was perfect for the job. In the 50s, when I was a boy and my friends and I would ride our bikes or horses out to the sandhills North of Byron I was always amazed at the "forest" of oil derricks around our town. We were in the middle of the oil business and most of my friend's fathers were employed by Ohio Oil Co. (later to become Marathon Oil".

I started the project by painting several sketches to be considered to define the direction I would go in the final painting. The panel that is pictured here was a suggestion that we could go forward with a "triptych"; a trio of paintings that would hang together. This idea would show the oil worker of the past on one side and the worker of the present on the other with a Wyoming landscape and different aspects of the oil business in the middle picture.

More on this project soon...