“I have always painted on the floor; I usually paint on my knees,” Leo Adams explains. He thinks this photograph was “posed” to promote a new show, which is one reason why he is also surrounded by many completed canvases. “This was my living room before it was finished, so it was probably in 1972.”

Arrangement in Anasazi Bowl, 331/2 × 331/2 in., 1985
“I’ve always admired the dried plants and flowers that I live with. I’m interested in painting the character of the plant, not the real plant,” Adams says. The bowl’s design was influenced by the Southwest art of the Anasazi. “There is a sense of energy to those patterns that I’ve always admired.”

Sagebrush Society (detail), 711/2 × 521/2 in., n.d.
Based on mythology of the Yakama Indians, this painting depicts “Shamanism, witch doctors, and healing people,” Adams explains. “Some become deer-, rabbit- or insect-like. It’s very spiritual, but it also reveals a sense of friendship. There can be magic in the character of friendship, as well.”

Caged Heart, 84 × 60 in., 2008
“This painting deals with a friendship I had with a man who had caged-in his heart. I worried about him,” Adams explains of the poetically titled piece. “It was my way of telling a young person to let go; my way of saying, ‘I don’t want you to be a lonely person. You just have to open up.'”

Landscape Hill (detail), 47 × 46 in., 2006
“I wanted to show the fields and hills around here, the cultivation of things,” Adams says. “It shows how man has come in and changed the land, from wild hills to farmland.” He suggested a row of trees and a field of wheat by pulling the eraser end of a pencil through wet paint. “It’s like finger painting,” he adds. “I throw paint at the canvas and I watch it dry. Then I sometimes remove paint before it dries.”

Landscape, 41 × 31 in., 1971
“Landscape expresses the essence of the hills and their texture rather than a hill itself. It could even be a field,” says Adams. “I used very muted colors, all the taupes and browns, with many layers of wash.”