Susan and I were over at Judy’s having dinner one night, and Walter Hopps came pounding on the door. That’s when Walter was a curator at the old Pasadena Museum of Art. He says to me: “I really like that blue piece you’re working on over in your studio.” And I said: “Yeah, I was working on it today.” It was one of my first early monochromatic pieces, a long blue angled piece. Walter said “I really like that piece,” and I said, “Wait a minute. Nobody’s seen that painting yet.” Walter hadn’t been over to my studio that day while I was working. How could he know? I thought about it for a while. “How did you see it?” And he says, “Oh, I went in your studio and looked at it.” I said, “What, did I forget to lock the door?” Walter says, “No, I used my credit card to flip the lock and let myself in.”
That was Blue Angle (1965). I still have that piece. I had gone up to the local paint store and got some edging, some aluminum countertop stripping, and framed it because I was having trouble making shaped paintings for the first time, asking myself, Should they have frames, or not?
— Ron reminiscing about his Pasadena studio days
