This is a continuing series of watercolors and drawings of tools and ordinary household objects started in 2003. At the time I was on sabbatical from Naropa University, where I teach classes in studio arts and meditation. During an extended painting retreat at Linda Fleming's Libre commune studio in southern Colorado, I got a call from Liza Matthews, art director of the Shambhala Sun magazine. She needed some images to accompany a Jack Kornfield article about the tools of meditation. I delivered a chisel, coping saw, wrench, and putty knife, all of which appeared in the January 2004 issue. Since then I've continued with the idea of tools and "implements" as I started to call them. Many of the compositions are vertical and formal, with the image placed slightly above center. This series has had an influence on my approach to the Advanced Drawing class that I teach at Naropa, where the traditional practice of drawing an object precisely is joined with the traditional meditation practice of paying precise attention to phenomena, and to do this naturally, without rigidity or contrivance.