I spent the afternoon in a smelly alley behind a gas station. (Quite a change of venue after painting the National Cathedral the other day!) I was initially drawn to the scene by the way the light slanted across the scene, but as I sat there, I appreciated other things: the many people who visited the dumpster; the large tangle of pipes, wires, and utility poles behind the building; the various shades of green on the dumpster itself; the mysterious lights inside the doorway at the end of the alley.