Durfee Creek in autumn, acrylic on paper.

Creativity is something that is born into each one of us. It’s been bred into us so that we will have a chance of surviving. We need creativity to thrive in an educational, business or any social situation.

Some of us feel compelled to use that innate creativity to communicate or express something through the language of art. How each individual does this is different, and yet familiar enough to be relatable on some level.

How much of your heart you pour into your work depends on your purpose or expectation of the piece.

If I want to show you in paint what a particular object or landscape looks like, it will still be painted by my hand and from my perspective, but I will do my best to copy or represent the facts, or at least the facts as I perceive them.

There is more going on in my brain than just the projection of focused light onto my retina. That image joins every other piece of information I have taken in, and so it comes out of the paintbrush with a distinct flavor of me.

You and I could set up easels side by side and render the same scene in paint. Our images will be different.

The advent of photography freed up artists to express something even more personal and more abstract through our art. Painting was no longer necessary for recording the world. We can put as much of ourselves into our expression as we want to, thus communicating not only what we see, but what we feel… what it is to be human.

We can let our minds wander freely through the vast archive of perception that we have accumulated. We can let our hand form marks without expectation and then be surprised by the results.

My academic struggles played a part in my lifelong identity as an artist. Arithmetic was so precise. The sum was right or wrong, and in my case, mostly wrong. I didn’t memorize my times tables, and this made every subsequent foray into math difficult and intimidating.

In art, there was no one right answer, and variation was encouraged. This was uncomfortable for some kids, and I can understand how some with different skills than me would want to know they had gotten it right. For me, art was forgiving and validating.

We’re all different.

I don’t think we need to strive to be unique, making being different our main goal. I mean, being different just for the sake of being different. I want to be understood, to be authentic and genuine.

The way I can be unique in my art is to be as me as I can be. I want to find meaningful analogies to help make sense of my experience as a human and then be relatable in my presentation. Nobody else can create anything from my perspective, and that is what makes me unique.

I don’t have to do anything to keep myself interested in my work, just as I don’t have to convince myself to keep taking one breath after another. Unlike breathing, I don’t need to paint every day. Art is not a chore for me. When things are ready to come out, they do.

Creative expression is not automatic. You learn as you go. Just as the basis for creativity is embedded in us by natural selection, practice and improvisation help us develop our voice. We find what works, and we also discover what does not work for us. This can lead to discouragement and frustration. We need to trust the process. It’s my own expectation of what something should look like that makes me feel discouraged.

I have to remind myself that painting is a process, and learning is a lifelong journey. It’s ugly sometimes and that doesn’t matter.

The steam you get in sauna when you throw water on sauna stove is called löyly. It is believed there is löylynhenki, the spirit of steam living in each sauna providing a decent heat for its users. But you should be careful not to piss off löylynhenki, as it can easily burn off your ears!

These color combinations occur for a number of reasons. What colors of paint do I have in my studio? What color came before it? Did they mix on the palate? Did they mix on the canvas?

In this painting, I have not used any black. That was intentional. As random as the brushstrokes may seem, they were all intentional. Contrived, but with no agenda. No expectation about the composition. I didn’t ask them to look like anything.

I really just wanted that time to play in the paint. To let my mind wander down whatever path it found itself on while my eye streamed the results of what my hand was doing back to my brain.

It was later, when the paint was dry, and the canvas hung on the wall next to my bed, that I started to see forms within the composition. A whippet head… An anglerfish… Faces.

I can’t see them when I have a paintbrush in my hand.

Life is filled with conflict and stress. I’m not complaining, that is just the case. I could distract my mind by watching tv, and sometimes I do that. I wish I could spend whole days in sweatpants and a sleeping bag. When I paint, the distraction is built right in, but the escape is active and even productive.

When I sit in a sauna or a whirlpool tub, everything slows down. If I sit long enough, thoughts and memories rise up like the steam. I am often surprised by what lurks inside me, as I am by the pictures hidden in the paint.

My grandmother was a Finnish immigrant from Helsinki.

A few years ago, I studied mid-century abstract Finnish art, and much of it felt very familiar to me.

I didn’t have to emulate it, because of the Finnish blood coursing through my veins.

Whatever I painted was authentically Finnish.

I live in a cold, northern climate, on the shore of a large body of water. Grammy lived in Maine, and she said the coast of Maine reminded her of Finland. When I saw the north shore of Lake Superior for the first time, it reminded me of Maine. I know that a lot of Finnish people liked this area. I like it best when the crowds of people are gone. That’s my inner Finn. I’m an introvert, but a social one. I love spending time with friends, but it’s when I’m alone that I recharge my battery.

I like to draw all of the curtains, lock the doors, and spend days in seclusion. The constant sound of chatter annoys me. Sometimes I just want everyone to be quiet.

“If someone is talking in a Finnish sauna they are not Finnish.”

3′ x 4′ acrylic on canvas, in progress

I sometimes feel self conscious about painting the same themes over and over. It’s what I do. Every time I paint fish swimming in the treetops, it comes out differently. Every time I paint, I learn something new. Something subtle, maybe, about how colors mix together, how different brushes release the paint, and how various paints and brushes work together with my hand to create a line. Each painting builds on the previous one.

I recently heard a speech that encouraged the practice of drawing the same thing every day. That was validating. If you draw the same thing every day for a year, you will become very familiar with it, and you will probably get bored with it. That’s when you begin to improvise. You will find out what works for you, and you’ll discover things that you don’t like. Either way, you will learn things to improve your art. Without realizing it, you will develop your artistic voice. You will discover new ways to express whatever it is you have to say.

We don’t have to reinvent ourselves in order to be interesting.

We can keep doing what we are doing, and we can improve our craft and our storytelling. We can grow and improve with authenticity and subtlety.

I don’t think we need to find our next big thing. Maybe our next big thing is not out there waiting for us at all. Maybe it’s more like a seed inside of us that just needs to be tended patiently.

50″x44″ (in progress)

Paint gets laid down in layers. I start with a layer of gesso on the canvas. Maybe a layer of light blue will go on top of that. Then I begin to “sketch” the composition. From there, I just sort of play with the colors and shapes, beginning with broad strokes, and gradually refining and adding detail.

This is how the moments of our lives get layered. We keep what works and we refine or erase the rest. We go through “ugly” phases, which are just part of the process.

We’re not quite finished with that part yet.

I’m working on a large canvas. It’s a common theme for me, fish swimming in the trees. I add detail, and then I may obliterate with a big brush, and try again. All of those layers are still in there. That process informs the final result. The old details still lurk within the layers of paint.

In the same way, the details of my life still swim in hidden layers, informing today’s version of me. The disappointments and unsuccessful attempts dart about in the deep end, though the surface may appear calm or reflect something beautiful.

I must learn to forgive the fish that I’ve added detail to prematurely, remembering that painting is a process. I must also be kind when I’ve made a decision too soon and find myself uncomfortable or overwhelmed.

I walk in circles. I keep doubling back, or looping around to places I’ve been before. Without realizing it, I end up where I’ve been. Revisiting places that I can embrace, or at least experience again, and then loosen my grip.

A place is just a place, the glue is all in my brain. It wasn’t the place, that is just the scenery. Just the backdrop for the life that played out there. A place for people to spend time doing the things that people do.

When I’m one of the people, it takes on significance, because those moments helped to make me who I am.

So I saw the house I lived in as a child. The building we once owned. The house where I spent my wedding night.

I stood there, in the very rooms, but I was not quite the very person any more, and the rooms had all changed, too.

The paths are fairly well worn by now, and I imagine I’ll see a few more familiar sights before it’s over.

When I was a kid, maybe 12 years old, my dad took a trip to the Holy Land with his father and his brother.

I asked him to bring me a wood carving of a cow. I think I mentioned it several times, the way I do.

It would have been so easy for him to say he couldn’t find one, and that would have been that. I wouldn’t be thinking about it some fifty years later.

But dad accepted the assignment, and later told me how he searched the markets.

So I know my dad thought of me on that trip, and that is the important part.

I still have the cow, carved out of olive wood, but my dad’s search for it is what makes it special.