My decision to disappear into painting is one I surely understand. The way it holds it still a few moments, much like good poetry. The very first time I painted, it felt like I sat myself down and said, “now hear this”. What came out was therapy I did not anticipate and a friendship you can’t buy.
Painting is a good teacher. It’s an enlightening quest of discovering your instincts while you jump into the abyss of tell me more. It is a strange and wondrous experience. A process of becoming aware of the incredibly intricate nature and complexities of the artist trying to grasp the existential nature of reality that is present at all times.
It has been a practice of giving in to the hand and instincts that are a number of steps ahead of me. Keeping up with myself feels like getting to know myself. It can be a vain and isolated predicament that pains harshly at times, but it passes. It all seems to make sense and holds me close. I feel at peace with the desire to be understood and to understand. You cross a bridge of unconscious becoming conscious and a leap into other states of being with a sense of eternal time that holding it all together.
Our ability to know things is an interesting concept. The way information comes to us and through us. While painting I experienced learning of things that were happening far outside of myself. Things I would learn about the next day in the news. This universal movement of energy that speaks.
This helped me to understand better the vast sea of upset that I see people in everyday. The experience of being here together with incredible sensitivities of knowing. The amazing nature of humanity is that is functions despite the large amount of information and energy of our system. It is beyond capacity to fully realize, but it is flowing through us constantly.
Over time themes began to emerge in my work. The concept of a level was an interesting one that came forward. To level and plumb your life. A masonic symbol and also the symbol of St. Joseph. This level showed up in regards to my own life, to a relationship I was in and also in a painting regarding a city I was living in. Other images also consistently appeared such as robed figures bound together, great & wise birds, the sun and moon, the sky, ocean and earth. There are often open windows, stairways, green fields and treasures. Large pearls are revealed and given as gifts.
There are also Buddhas, medicine wheels, portals, Christ and Mary. There are teachings of life force energy moving through the body. Chakras, the Atman and a diamond symbol of the soul. I am surprised often while painting. It takes over and I do my best to keep up. It is a true joy. We have tremendous abilities. I feel incredible humility and awe learning that a person can go deeply within themselves and connect to the same teachings of humanity that have taught countless others. We don’t need to be specially gifted to discover it. It has interest in our lives and how we are together.
We are alive and here with everyone else. We come and go and in it is beauty and terror.