I find commissions to be extremely difficult. Painting a moment, or a place or an object that is meaningful to someone doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll capture that meaning. A home is a perfect example of this—should it be about the house itself? The landscape? The season? The inhabitants? What if you want to be about a little bit of all the things. In this case, we wanted the home to be obviously lived in, to represent the family within. There were also three small trees in the front of the house that had to be included, as one was planted for each of the children. The fall foliage will command attention, regardless of what the subject of the painting is, but I think we found a balance of all those elements.