As a preschooler, I liked to draw. My mother would give me paper and crayons, and I would make pictures. I didn’t do it because I thought I was creative. It wasn’t because I had discovered some talent in me. I just liked doing it. I may have done it a lot, maybe not as much as I think I did. That doesn’t matter. I enjoyed it, and kept doing it, either a little or a lot, year after year. By the time I was a teenager, I’d put a lot of miles on the crayons, and my ability to draw was agreed upon by people around me. I could draw a Coke bottle or an air conditioner. I also drew from my imagination. I drew scenes of people, and memories with my friends. Maybe that was a seed of telling my personal stories, but I didn’t think of it that way. It was many years before I tried to tell my own story through art. Now, I’m inspired by everything around me, and I’m still digging for the images inside me. I don’t think I chose my medium. It wasn’t a moment of decision, anyway. I tried a lot of different art supplies throughout my life. I was introduced to some in art school. I may have rejected, or set aside a lot of them to end up with what I use now. I paint primarily in acrylic. I draw primarily with fine tipped black pens. There are a lot of mark making tools in my art box, so a lot of different pencils, pastels and markers make their way in or under the paint. They all bring a little something different into the art. It’s easy for me to lay down lines or colors. If I struggle, it’s because of my expectations. All paintings go through ugly phases. That’s normal and necessary. When I’m really struggling, it’s best to put that one aside for a while, or just look at it without a paintbrush in my hand. The answer is usually easy when my mind is relaxed. I can leave it, alter it or obliterate it. There’s something that kicks in when I paint. It’s the joy of mixing and laying down color. I feel free when I paint. I do it for me. For my own enjoyment. It’s nice to find myself with a satisfying piece at the end, but that can’t be my goal. Thinking that way leads to disaster. So on a good day, I feel relaxed. I feel like myself. I feel interested. Those feelings underlie the swarm of thoughts that swim by. They appear from somewhere inside me. Some float right up through my consciousness like bubbles that started from somewhere in the depths, and keep rising beyond me. Others stay for a while. Some sliver of experience that I was unaware of. Some nearly forgotten detail that wants to be seen, and doesn’t go away until it’s been observed and validated. When I create, sometimes I feel spiritual. Holy. I don’t always like the end result of my creative process. It’s probably because I wasn’t at the end yet.