From 17 to 67

Mature

Emerging out of my paintings that are all abstract in some form is myself. A side of me that is always there, spent years in the background just above the gesso on oils, and between the lines on drawings, and a ghost breaking out of the layer of acrylics when I painted in a frenzy of activity.

I guess this is no different than the experience of a thousand or a hundred thousand artists before me.
Each in his own way using light, color, depth, shadow, and stroke to understand and represent the world or a part of the world within and outside.

I wondered when I was younger why an artist could paint one scene after another in the same style, one seeming just a hand done carbon copy of the other. Could it be just a commercial enterprise as some claimed or was there something missing in each painting that forced the artist to come again and again to the same scene as a punishment for not letting his inner self out and on to the canvas.

Perhaps it does take a life time to realize that what you are doing is nothing more than self discovery of different facets of yourself. As one artist paints the same scene in different light conditions, times of the day, facing the weather at its best and worst, and one facet is cut and polished at a time to let the light into himself.

So often we sit shadowed in thought wondering what is next and forgetting to be right here now.  Loving every minute that we have to be ourselves, unique, creative, together with friends, and family, yet in our own world created by the next couple of thoughts, or thoughts long forgotten that left an active impression.

We are the only animal that can change the light that surrounds us at will. What an amazing gift we have given ourselves. We can emerge from darkness with the strike of a match, turn of a knob, flip of a switch, or by just pulling aside a curtain. How often do we chose to change from light to dark, and dark to light? From the moment we open one eye in the morning, to lighting the kitchen to find the coffee maker, pressing the button on the remote, clicking off the led reminder eye of the dishwasher when we empty it of the nights work. Light and dark we change our world every hour of the day.