Many years ago we knew an older artist whose work was very well respected in the local art community. She painted large colorful abstract, often flowery, paintings in oil paint, and would have an annual or biennial show at her cooperative DC gallery. We attended what we suspected would be one of her last shows, as she was planning to move to a retirement community. We decided to buy a large painting, unusually figurative, with images of her mother and her daughter on the family farm. We paid $900, more than we had ever paid for art before. Later we learned that she had discarded her entire output before she moved. There remains one painting in her former church. What was not purchased or given to her family went to the landfill.