My ideas come from my life. Everything that I have sensed is stored in my brain. Details can come forward to tell a story. You’re not going to get the literal account from the composition, but I ponder while I paint, and I feel that those thoughts somehow get expressed in brushstrokes. When I’m painting, I often feel like I am meditating. This is when it works best. In my head, I’m traveling back in time or dreaming of the future, but the parts of me that manipulate the brush are right in the moment.
I am often surprised by what comes to mind. Sometimes a past joy or horror, sometimes a detail that seems insignificant until I realize, by spending time with it, that it is attached to something else. Something big or important. Of course they are all attached. Life is fluid, and nothing is isolated. Every day has been in context. Every moment has actually been part of the flow.
This is true for everyone. My life is touched and influenced by others when we float down that part of the river together for a while.
It is not a leap from the idea in my head to the action of painting any more than the leap from thinking words and moving my mouth to say them aloud.
Painting is very personal. It’s rare that anyone would see the initial stages, and an onlooker would not know what I am thinking about. When I paint in public, I pretty much talk the whole time, so that is a very different experience.
At some point, I share the work I’ve done in private, and I often share the story.
If you relate to what I’ve done or said, chances are you will superimpose your story, and if you share it with me, we may both be richer for the contact.
If you don’t relate to it, that’s just fine!