My easel is a cheap H-stretcher I bought second-hand in 1998. One of the crank handles broke off years ago, so I keep a pair of pliers on the floor next to it to adjust the height. People who visit the studio always offer to fix it. I tell them no. Fifteen years of my paintings came off that thing, I'm not going to risk it now.

I know it's superstition. I know a new easel would be sturdier, that the pliers are ridiculous at my age. But there's something about the fact that this exact wooden frame has absorbed twenty-six years of turpentine drips and bad days and good ones. The crank is worn smooth where my thumb sits. The tilt is slightly off because I dropped it once moving studios, and I've learned to compensate without noticing I'm doing it.

My daughter asked me last week why I don't just buy the good one I've been looking at online for three years. I didn't have an answer that made sense out loud. The truth is that the pliers are part of the painting now. Every time I bend down for them, it's a little ceremony before I change the height. Keeps me honest about what I'm doing.

Anyway. If the bent screw gives out mid-canvas someday, I'll take it as a sign from the universe that I should finally retire the thing. Until then we're in it together.