Interview dialog by Jeffrey Carr
Philip Geiger is a revered and extremely completed painter recognized for his home interiors, landscapes, and determine work. Receiving his undergraduate schooling at Washington College in St. Louis and his M.F.A. from Yale College College of Artwork, he started commonly exhibiting in New York early in his profession and has proven extensively in quite a few group and solo reveals.
He’s represented by the Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, Hidell Brooks Gallery in Charlotte, NC and has beforehand present work on the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in NYC, NC. with a solo exhibition there in 2007. His work are represented in a number of outstanding public collections and have been reviewed by the New York Instances, Artwork in America, ARTnews, and The New Criterion. He taught for over thirty years on the College of Virginia at Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier than retiring to his present house and studio in Staunton, Virginia. We met not too long ago through a Zoom session to debate his portray observe.
Jeffrey Carr: Phil, I simply completed listening to a YouTube interview with you from 2012. You mentioned the way you revise your pictures closely whereas engaged on them, and the way you’ll sand or scrape down your work earlier than repainting. Do you add figures and different parts into the image? Do you do that from life? Or are you doing it from invention?
Philip Geiger: Properly, each. I’ve change into slower. I can work on work virtually indefinitely by sanding them, by rethinking the composition. It’s not an environment friendly course of in any respect, however I at all times have dissatisfaction with the picture and need to work on it again within the studio for lengthy durations of time. Then I would return to direct observational at a later date, making an attempt to get one thing again.
Philip Geiger; Black Mountain Story, 2018
JC: So, are the figures in these work largely invented? Do you employ photographic references?
PG: Not a lot photographic reference. The method may change portray by portray and determine by determine. Some components is likely to be invented and a few is likely to be achieved immediately from remark. I work from fashions a number of instances per week. I schedule a mannequin and work immediately into the portray with the mannequin. It at all times conjures up me to work with a portray that I’ve already acquired going.
Philip Geiger; September 24, 2010, 22 by 18in.
JC: So, you’re taking a portray that you already have going, and you might have sanded it down or scraped it. Do you then simply sit any individual down in a chair after which paint them into the image? Isn’t the area fully totally different? How can you combine the brand new scenario into the prevailing portray?
PG: I strive to do this. I actually just like the accidents. I’ll oftentimes rethink the composition. The determine will probably be in some new place, or the size will probably be new. One thing like that. However that struggle, that accident, of placing a determine into an current portray that wasn’t deliberate within the first place, and that will even be within the unsuitable place, is actually motivating. It could actually recommend one thing new that might occur within the portray, a brand new discovery. It’s definitely inefficient to maintain working and looking like this. However I see the portray as a search. I’ve by no means thought that I might plan a portray prematurely. I believe I’d be bored if I deliberate out a drawing and knew the place issues have been going to go after which went at portray it. And in any case, this might be virtually unattainable should you work from direct remark as a result of issues are altering and the sunshine modifications.
Philip Geiger; East Sunbathing, 2022 24 by 18in
Philip Geiger; The Perfectionist, 2018, 27 by 24in.
JC: You’re telling me that you just don’t work strictly from remark. You might incorporate numerous remark however you’re working very synthetically. By artificial, I imply that the method could contain quite a few methods of developing the picture that’s built-in into the ultimate portray. The area in your work appears virtually completely artificial, relatively than strictly naturalistic. However lots of the particulars appear achieved from direct remark.
PG: They’re precise locations, however I elaborate on them. I really like elaborating partitions within the studio, corners, moldings, structure, and flooring. Within the studio, I form of really feel my method throughout the area to seek out some drama within the area, some that means. That search could be very sluggish.
Philip Geiger; Frederick Avenue, 2018, 22 by 18in
JC: Do you imply that you just discover the drama and the thrill within the area itself relatively than within the figures or conditions being depicted? I bear in mind seeing one in every of your work the place you closely reworked the picture to be able to create a sure impact of sunshine throughout the partitions.
PG: The danish painter Wilhelm Hammershoi had this sense for partitions, French doorways and the shadows forged by framed work or tables. He beloved these issues and I’m certain he labored them slowly. I don’t know if he labored them away from remark or not. However he appears to have elaborated on them. The richness appears essential to him, the play of sunshine throughout these surfaces.
Vilhelm Hammershoi, Dwelling Room with Piano and Girl Wearing Black, 1901
JC: To me, it appears that evidently in your work, as in Hammershoi, the depiction of area accommodates and defines the figures relatively than simply being a backdrop or a setting for the figures. This jogs my memory of the early Vermeer portray of the Girl studying a Letter. It was restored not too long ago, and the wall behind the lady was eliminated to disclose a portray behind the determine. To me, this modifications fully the area and so the that means of the portray. What was your response to this restoration?
PG: I prefer it much less.
Johannes Vermeer, Lady Studying a Letter at an Open Window c. 1657–1659, Oil on canvas, 33 in × 25.4 in, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
JC: So did I. Earlier than the restoration, the wall behind the lady was densely painted and was very stunning. It makes me consider your very painterly contact. Your work should not painted with numerous element; the element is evoked relatively than described. You don’t simply copy; you evoke the shape.
PG: That’s an important praise. Vermeer has at all times been a touchstone for me in my work. He finds a common high quality in what was proper in entrance of him, in that room in his home that he labored with over and over. The identical desk and the identical ermine coat and possibly the identical mannequin. However he was capable of finding a density and emotion in these strange issues. However his work is just not figure-centric. I consider him as wanting previous the determine and zeroing in on the area between the chair and the wall, or a nook of a room the place a basket is hung, or there’s even a nail on the wall. These occasions appear to draw him. The figures strike me as virtually clean. I really like them; they’re completely attractive. However you virtually can’t know them. And actually, there may be numerous debate about who was the mannequin in his work; was it his spouse or this or that particular person? Identities have been faraway from them, and the entire place is the drama.
Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer
JC: Vermeer did numerous shocking and sudden issues with scale and dimension relationships. In a single early portray, there’s a lady sitting at a desk, a determine dressed as a form of a Cavalier with a large hat and along with his elbow sitting out. The attitude is skewed in order that he feels huge whereas she feels little. You appear to do comparable issues with scale and dimension relationships in your work.
PG: I’ve by no means considered that as an issue in Vermeer’s work. They simply appear completely good to me; every of them is completely felt. In that one referred to as The Laughing Lady, each little bit of it appears so proper and so felt that I don’t suppose an excessive amount of in regards to the area or the drawing in them. He did wish to layer a darkish foreground in opposition to a lighter passage or a silhouette form.
Philip Geiger; Three, 2010, 24 by 29in.
JC: I believe that that is true of your work as effectively. Expressiveness is created by the size, the area, and even simply the way in which a wall is labored. You create drama with individuals strolling right into a room or strolling in direction of us with one other distant determine silhouetted in opposition to a window or over within the nook. You actually really feel the drama within the area. One other artist who does that is Edward Hopper. Hopper’s portray evokes some indefinable that means that you just need to suppose comes from a determine or another component within the portray, but it surely’s about one thing else. It’s about the way in which he places collectively the area.
12-Philip Geiger; Percy, 2018, 24 by 28in
Philip Geiger; Peru, 2007, 28 by 34in.
PG: Yeah, it’s about him. I believe each Hopper and Vermeer have a sense for shapes that’s distinctive. I’ve tried to do this. To really feel the proportions of the divisions contained in the portray as having that means. I typically consider Vermeer as being the best form maker. Simply the quantity of a map in opposition to a white wall simply appears so proper. The intervals really feel deeply significant; it’s the measures in between intervals within the portray that makes shapes.
JC: I’m interested by Mondrian, who like Vermeer had this unbelievable sense of interval, the place all the things feels good. However Mondrian made his work about simply these measurements and took out all the things else.
PG: That’s by no means as attention-grabbing to me because the shapes in Vermeer. I ponder what Vermeer would have mentioned about this. Would he have understood our language of abstraction and of making an attempt to see shapes independently? Was all of it intuitive on his half? I want we might ask him. However you’re proper; they tried to separate that out within the twentieth century. The form intervals in Mondrian don’t do a lot for me.
Philip Geiger; Theresa 9 A.M., 2007, 36 by 40in
Philip Geiger; Anna Asleep, 2002, 34 by 28in
JC: I don’t suppose portray acquired any higher by making an attempt to be reductivist. For instance, there may be Saenredam, the dutch artist who did very extreme white Church Interiors. Like Mondrian, he had a severely abstracted visible sense. However the intervals and shapes of his church interiors additionally create emotional responses and even concepts about divine gentle or cause or probity. Against this, artists like Mondrian aspire to be purely summary. However that’s clearly not what you’re doing. Are you interested by creating temper or emotion by means of the usage of area and the interactions of form?
Pieter Saenredam (1597 – 1665), The Inside of the Grote Kerk at Haarlem (1636-7), Oil on oak, 59.5 × 81.7 cm, Nationwide Gallery, UK
PG: I don’t know what I’d say about temper as a result of I couldn’t establish what it’s. However I’ve emotional reactions to what I’d name rightness in a portray. That’s why I wrestle with it for thus lengthy as a result of it isn’t at all times there. I believe that the communication of an inside life that comes by means of a portray is why we’re fascinated by them. It’s one thing I wrestle with, and I believe it leads to a temper. I’m clearly interested in very muted colours. In my thoughts, muted tones are extra suggestive of sunshine than good, native colour. And that, in addition to an emphasis on worth in my work, may create a temper that’s totally different from different kinds of portray.
Philip Geiger; September 24, 2010, 22 by 18in.
Philip Geiger; Translation, 2018, 20 by 24in
Philip Geiger; Dialog, 2016, 24 by 29in.
JC: There’s an outdated concept that colour creates moods: good colour creates sturdy feelings and muted, quiet colours create quiet feelings. That is likely to be true, or it may not. Such as you, I’m not even certain what “temper” means. The early work of Degas makes use of low saturation colour. He retains the vividness and the depth down. Maybe due to his use of low-saturation colours, his moods are virtually indescribable. The colour-moods of Degas remind me of your work.
PG: There’s a sort of shimmering magnificence in his work that I’d describe as being figure-first. His determine drawing is so good that the presence of the determine is at all times the purpose of the portray. What he does round them is one thing to enhance the determine and the motion of the determine. It’s an important problem for me as a result of I don’t draw the determine that effectively; no one does. I really like his work.
Edgar Degas
Philip Geiger; Winter, 2018, 24 by 24in.
Phil Geiger; The Traveler, 2007
JC: Your footage are sometimes enveloped with a light-weight I’ve seen in interiors achieved by different American artists like Thomas Dewing. There’s a heat, enveloping glow to those work during which all people exists in a liquid, enveloping honey-colored glow. Do you are feeling any connection to the numerous American artists who paint quiet, tonalist interiors, artists like Tarbell or Decamp?
Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862-1938), Inside with Mom and Youngster oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in. The Huntington Library, Artwork Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Philip Geiger; Morning, 2018, 24 by 26in.
Philip Geiger; January, 2018, 24 by 24 in.
PG: Properly, it does seem like that. I see the similarity however I don’t take a look at these artists very a lot and I’m truly not very aware of them. Somebody from that point interval that I definitely do take a look at is Vilhelm Hammershoi. I really feel extra linked to that portray. All these Boston painters like Bensen or Tarbell by no means challenged me sufficient, I suppose. They don’t seem to be as difficult as a Degas. Degas could also be doing very various things, but it surely’s an actual problem to me. I’ve at all times acquired a Degas e book there within the studio. I’ve acquired the Hammershoi e book there, and the Vuillard e book. These are the books I would take a look at each morning. I do see the similarities with these different painters; there is likely to be a Merrit Chase who would do a gorgeous ground or a gorgeous couch. However I’ve by no means checked out them a lot.
JC: You’re mentioning some basic European painters like Hammershoi and Vuillard. However to me, there’s something quintessentially American in your portray, and I’m making an attempt to really feel the place you’re on this spectrum. I sense a relationship with artists in our custom, like Edwin Dickinson, for instance. How do you join with somebody like that? And we talked about Hopper.
PG: Properly, Hopper for certain. I’ve made an enormous examine of Hopper and I’ve spent numerous time portray exterior. I’ve checked out all of his works very carefully and I reply to Hopper lots. I really like Edwin Dickinson, however I don’t fairly know what to make of it. I believe there’s an important thriller in his work and a few actual originality in what he did. The intense tonalness and greyness of the work are engaging to me. It appears virtually romantic; his meditations on funereal topics and dying.
I discover him fascinating, however I haven’t discovered a technique to make lots out of that. All people seems to be at his self-portraits and desires to do some self-portraits. I’ve achieved that, perhaps impressed by him.
Philip Geiger; The Opening, 1990, 30 by 36in.
Philip Geiger; Completely different Shirt, 2006, 24 by 18in.
Philip Geiger
JC: We’ve been speaking about historic painters. However you and I got here of age in a vastly totally different inventive universe than the one which exists now. What are some painters of the seventies and eighties that you just really feel an actual kinship with?
PG: My academics William Bailey and Lennart Anderson stay fashions for me. I love what they did of their work. Each of them pursued their imaginative and prescient whether or not the artworld paid any consideration to them or not. They pursued their imaginative and prescient fearlessly their entire lives. There was a latest exhibition of Lennart Anderson, and he’s getting some consideration. I really like his work, and each of their examples are essential to me. There’s a portray that was the centerpiece of the latest Anderson exhibition that’s owned by the College of Virginia. It’s referred to as St. Mark’s Place. It’s an early New York avenue portray with three primary figures. One determine is leaning from a pole; he painted that by himself in a mirror. One other determine is a person with a canine, and there’s a lady wanting again. I regarded lots at that portray once they would dangle it within the Nineteen Eighties, and it had a big effect on me. The placing collectively of those three figures implied dense psychology. They appear to pay attention to one another, although they weren’t interacting or doing something collectively. The College of Virginia additionally owns the William Bailey portray referred to as Portrait of S, which is predicated on a Balthus. Each of those work have been essential to me, and that was a second in time that was essential. Bailey would say to his college students, “Don’t be afraid to be influenced by different painters”. He clearly felt that painters like Balthus or Courbet was completely reliable for artists to do, and to make a variation on one thing like Courbet’s Girls within the Grass. I’ve at all times favored this instance; it appears to free me.
Lennart Anderson, St. Mark’s Place, 1969-1976, Oil on canvas, 93 13/16 x 74 1/8 in.© Property of Lennart Anderson Courtesy of the Fralin Museum of Artwork.
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William Bailey, Portrait of S, 1979-80, Oil on Canvas, 52×42 in. Fralin Museum of Artwork on the College of Virginea, Charlottesville
JC: Painters typically have their nonetheless life objects throughout the studio, and organize them into compositions to color. There are a number of nice Lennart Anderson nonetheless lifes like this. However William Bailey as soon as joked that he had all of his still-life objects in his pocket. I believe he meant that his still-life objects have been extra invented than noticed, and have been extra about purely formal visible relationships than about precise objects. Bailey’s meticulously painted backgrounds even make me consider a Brice Marden. In portray like this, the subject material is usually only a pretext. Do you consider your self as principally a proper painter, in search of formal options? Or do you see your self in another method?
PG: I don’t need to be a formalist. I’d be an summary painter if I did. I’m in love with the true world. I believe that it’s an important place to begin for making a portray. I would like it in there; the entire wealthy complexity and interpretive potentialities of material. I’ve an affection for individuals and I need to get that into the portray. The locations we dwell in can mirror our inside life and are a part of it. I believe that’s price highlighting and making work about. The world in entrance of us is a extremely wealthy topic; our lives, our homes, the city I dwell in, my life. I believe the ideology of modernism has dried out portray. It grew to become reductive by making an attempt to make it simply in regards to the parts of portray in a an increasing number of pure method. I believe all this wealthy accidentalness of our lives, and the truth that we psychologize work and see ourselves in work and establish with work and have feelings in regards to the figures in work, is all a crucial a part of the richness.
Philip Geiger; The White Gown, 1989, 18 by 12in.
Philip Geiger
JC: Loads of the work I see by youthful artists mirror gender or racial issues or are satirical, ironic, or humorous. I’m advised that youthful artists typically really feel their artwork ought to handle social or political points. Their topic issues are sometimes very witty and even alarming. However the topic issues of your work appear very quiet and understated. I consider an artist like John Koch who paints equally understated material. You depict younger ladies sitting quietly at tables, ladies sleeping, figures shifting by means of a room, gentle flowing over a determine from a window, or the occasional suburban panorama. And also you and I each steadily depict ladies in our footage. That males typically depict ladies has been a supply of controversy. What is that this about?
PG: Simply to handle that difficulty, I see my work as celebratory. I do know there may be some critic on the market who received’t see my work that method and will interpret them with some darkish story, however I see them as celebratory. I really like who it’s that I’m portray, both males or ladies. Individuals in locations is a topic that implies a chance to make a portray. I just like the sort of area of figurative portray the place you don’t know precisely what is going on. These are evocative to me. John Koch’s work could be at instances a bit literal. In Koch’s portray, we all know what is going on. I just like the surprises and accidents in portray, the place we get to make our personal that means; the concept of an image about being in between issues occurring… or when one thing has simply occurred, or goes to occur and it’s not outlined. This open endedness fires my creativeness.
John Koch(1909 – 1978), My Studio, ca. 1952, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Artwork Museum
Philip Geiger; Virginia, 2018, 24 by 28in.
Philip Geiger; 4 p.m. 2001, 24” by 18in.
JC: In your work, you may need somebody at a desk, and there is likely to be some objects on the desk. Nevertheless it’s not an outline of a desk after breakfast, a dialog, or another very particular occasion. I bear in mind a portray of yours with a deep area in which there’s a silhouetted determine, but it surely’s by no means a narrative about any individual opening the door and welcoming the visitors. You by no means appear to inform little tales in your work. As you mentioned, they’re very ambiguous. They aren’t individuals simply posing, however on the similar time, there isn’t actually a narrative in there that I can discern.
PG: As for myself, I typically see a sort of dialog or correspondence between parts. I need to have the looks of an actual place. For this reason I don’t paint completely something. I would like the atmosphere to be clear – it is a eating room – however the scenario to be much less clear. So I’ll do a chair and an individual or a flower and an individual or a window and an individual, and I’ll put these two issues in a relationship with one another that might be shocking, an imaginative affiliation or non-sequitur. The particular person and the junk on the desk; you bounce between one and the opposite. They usually start to have one thing to do with one another or belong to one another not directly. These are the sorts of issues that curiosity me as I’m setting the portray up. Does the again of that chair relate to the determine, in order that it will likely be dramatic sufficient that we transfer from this to that? With out it being a literal narrative, these pairings would appear to me to recommend a sort of that means within the setup that might be shocking. I see that in Vuillard, the place a determine will probably be positioned someplace you don’t anticipate them to be within the portray. He’ll make us actually ponder a giant outdated chair within the foreground, and he makes us actually examine it. There will probably be some sample on the ground, and he’ll make lots out of it. The chair or the ground change into as attention-grabbing because the particular person. That is very interesting to me. This multiplicity distinguishes a picture from a portrait, it’s now an inside drama.
Philip Geiger, Witch Trials, 2018
JC: I bear in mind a Vuillard portray with a girl sitting, as you mentioned, in somewhat nook of the portray. He put somewhat orange piece of sunshine on her nostril and you find yourself that as a lot as you do on the lady.
PG: It’s indirection, I like indirection and portray the place you see one thing like that. We have been speaking about Degas, the place he may have some mannequin bathing however you then’ll see this sample that he’s layered within the background that’s completely musically stunning with layers of warms and cools laid upon one another. You allow the determine to have a look at this sample. It’s a sort of indirection in making the picture.
JC: With Degas, it’s at all times the sudden scene. As a substitute of the mannequin dealing with you, you’re looking down at her again from a excessive viewpoint, in order that it’s an unfamiliar view. Within the nice portray of the Belelli household, Degas depicts a mom and her little lady staring off into area whereas visually being separated from the determine of a person sitting to the precise. There’s a division proper between the 2 areas of the image. Lennart Anderson’s Avenue portray can be dramatic, perhaps his solely instance of doing this. The portray has that wagon tipping over with individuals operating, and the lady popping out of the door along with her mouth open. Have you ever ever painted one thing that was intentionally dramatic or making a press release in that method?
Edgar Degas, The Bellelli Household, (1858 – 1869), oil on canvas, 78 x 9in., Musée d’Orsay
PG: Properly I consider the sunshine as being dramatic, and I’ve painted some very darkish work during which individuals are positively in shadow. Lennart Anderson painted a person in midair leaping out of a constructing in what I suppose was a suicide. I can’t think about doing that. I’ve by no means achieved something like that, beginning with one thing as literal as that. However I like the concept of divided work, just like the Degas portray of the Bellelli household. Work that divide themselves into components with individuals doing various things in numerous components of the portray. That implies a drama which may be much less dramatic than a divorce however suggests an consideration or consciousness throughout the area. I like the concept of dividing a portray in half and having two sides.
JC: You may have a portray of a man arising out of a stairwell in direction of us on the precise aspect of the portray, and proper throughout on the opposite aspect of the portray is a deep area with individuals persevering with to a distant window. That is creating drama with area and lightweight and pictorial group, and never with dramatic material. That is like what Degas does. Against this, there are many up to date artists who’re doing fantastic work with very dramatic topic issues; wildly creative work, sexual satire, and social commentary. Seemingly all the things besides simple depictions of their fast atmosphere. What do you concentrate on all that?
PG: Properly, it’s simply not me, you realize? I like the concept that artwork doesn’t should be all the identical. All of us don’t should do the identical factor. The examples we’ve been speaking about are what I’m most fascinated by. I’ve nice respect for these different artists but it surely’s simply not my temperament. I can’t think about doing one thing like that. I consider the topics in my work as being a lot quieter; not operatic or extraordinarily dramatic. I like Hammershoi or Morandi. One thing as quiet as that: simply the relationships of this object to that object appears very significant to me. I’ve by no means considered portray as being an important automobile for social commentary. Some individuals can do wildly expressive work with closely loaded topic issues. However I believe this may additionally get you drawn away from what is actually most expressive in portray.
JC: How essential is content material for us painters? There’s a present up now of Philip Guston, an artist who addressed socially related and controversial topic issues. Do now we have any sort of accountability to make socially-conscious work? Are work made for an viewers, or is it simply Artwork for Artwork’s sake?
PG: I don’t fairly agree with the dichotomy that you just’re establishing right here as a result of I’m very sympathetic to work that desires to have an ethical core. I believe portray that pursues magnificence within the quiet sense that we’re speaking about is perhaps probably the most ethical sort of portray. Work that may cope with topical points just like the Guernica, for instance, are simply very totally different. It’s not my temperament to do the Guernica. However I believe that pursuing authenticity and wonder within the quiet method that we’d affiliate with Vuillard, somebody who didn’t go away his condo a lot, who painted his direct environment, is as morally engaged as Picasso’s Guernica. I believe Vuillard is trying to find a type of the Good. He’s making a proposition in regards to the type of the Good that finally ends up being extra common than the Guernica. I believe that there’s a couple of technique to have an ethical core to the exercise that we’re doing. I don’t like this dichotomy of it being both Artwork for Artwork’s Sake or it being just like the Guernica, addressing struggle and peace and present occasions. I believe the wonderful thing about the artwork world now’s which you could pursue one or the opposite, in keeping with your temperament. We don’t all should do the identical factor. A painter like Ingres, for instance, has dug deep into his concepts of magnificence and inside authenticity as it’s linked to magnificence. That’s one of many biggest achievements an artist could make and is likely one of the most ethical contributions an artist could make. I believe Ingres did one thing new by extending human consciousness and capability within the pursuit of what he did so efficiently. I wouldn’t need to evaluate myself to Ingres. However I love that as a lot as I love Picasso portray the Guernica. I believe that in the long term, it could imply extra.
Philip Geiger; Home, 2016
JC: You’re equating Magnificence and morality.
PG: Sure!
JC: And that magnificence itself has an ethical drive.
PG: Sure!
JC: I’m going to ask you one thing which I believe would provoke numerous painters. Is your material about magnificence?
PG: I’m making an attempt. I believe I’m making an attempt. I believe that that’s the connection. It’s absurd to match myself to Ingres or Degas or to their nice achievements of magnificence. However that’s what motivates me. That’s what will get me turned on to make a portray. We’re linked to that. Why else would you undergo all of this should you don’t get to be in proximity to magnificence? It’s not excellent as social commentary. Hopefully, we give it a brand new seen type which you could talk with any individual else. I believe that’s on the heart. We wouldn’t be going about this backward form of exercise for every other cause.
JC: That’s an ideal ending Phil. Thanks for sharing your insights and expertise and to your fantastic work.