Wine and Cheese was from a commissioned pair of still-life paintings I did during the transition from the piles to the large, stylized paintings. Here, the treatment of the subject is much warmer, more sensitive and looser than in previous works. This marked a major shift in my interests toward using light itself as a more spiritual force. The more interpretive technique was also extremely important to me, though I wouldn’t return to it until much later. I had limited interest in doing conventional pictures and had to go through the heavy, psychological searching of the stylized paintings to find more appropriate uses for even my increasing, realist skills.