Starting to Rust was created during the Palisades fires in California, at a moment when the devastation was still unfolding but beginning to disappear from the daily news cycle. The fires had not ended, the damage had not disappeared, yet the intensity of public attention was already beginning to cool.

As the heat faded from the headlines, the consequences remained. The painting grew from that uneasy distance between what is still burning and what is already being forgotten.

What remains is residue—ash, erosion, and the slow staining of time. Like rust forming across a surface, urgency begins to dull. Heat becomes memory, edges soften, and something once impossible to look away from quietly recedes, even while its mark remains.