I love to paint trees, and that is what people like to hang on their walls. I love to be surrounded by trees, and to commune with them on some level. I rush around, trying to do things and go places as fast as I can. Trees do things at a much slower pace. I can not go that slow, but I sit for a while beneath the branches, and then rush off again. When I come back, the trees are still standing there with arms outstretched to welcome me again.
I also love to make abstract paintings. They free my mind to see whatever it is that I will see, not pinning me down to a specific theme. I look at them the way I look at clouds, not writing them off when the message takes some time.
This may be why I say that painting is meditative for me. It slows me down the way a bonfire or boat ride does. It structures time so that I can slow way down and not be bored. I gaze into and through the branches, into and beyond the clouds, into the paint and what lies behind it.
The tree paintings get snapped up, because you can see at a glance that it is a tree. Wonderful! The abstracts tend to accumulate. I ask them are you too sloppy? Are you too subtle? What are you trying to say?
They exhale, long and low,