In 2006, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery announced the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition to help celebrate the reopening of the gallery after a two year renovation. The competition was open to any portrait work provided it was of a person the artist knew and who agreed to the use of their likeness for the contest.

Since 1988, Dr. James Setapen had served as the conductor and musical director of the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra. Over the years I had grown to appreciate and admire him as an artist and a teacher.

Dr. Setapen had always had the habit of wiping his brow with his handkerchief after each movement, which I always took as an indicator of the amount of concentration and labor he brought to his conducting. I envisioned a sculpture catching him in what I considered a trademark movement.

I approached Dr. Setapen and he graciously agreed to sit for the portrait. He had been the subject of an earlier oil portrait by another artist and was visibly relieved when I explained that I would work mostly from photographs and two or three very brief actual sittings to "fine tune" the work.