In the Garden with Ron Van Dongen

Van Dongen takes me back several decades while we sit at his kitchen table - his dog, Elliot, asleep at our feet - in the Portland, Oregon home that he shares with his partner, David. Out the window, the late-fall garden braces for winter's frigid rains. With his quiet demeanor and gentle voice marked by a slight accent, he tells me that some of his earliest memories are not of people, just "trees, animals, colors, flowers and plants. I don't know why that attracted me, but it did. And that's never gone away."