Encaustic painting survives from Greco-Roman times. The Fayum funerary portraits, named for the Egyptian oasis where hundreds were found intact, are more than 2000 years old. Encaustic medium is still made by melting beeswax with a small amount of tree resin. Applied to cradled birch panels in many thin, individually heat-fused layers, the wax gradually builds a surface of unique physicality; soft, deep, translucent, burnished. Borrowing from Robert Ryman, I think of my work not as abstract, but real surfaces, real light.