I saw the rainbows and I danced with them

“I saw the rainbows in my studio and I danced with them.”

When I paint, my aim is not to try reconcile the conflict between chaos and order – to soften the hard edges of disorder and find a harmonious center or whole and then to soften the hard edges of disorder or make everything monochromatic. I believe that life is not that way. We become disillusioned when we try to make it something other than what it really is.  Life is bumpy and playful. It can be a marvelous ride if we don’t try and make it something that it is not.  When I look outside and watch the wind blow the tops of the trees, I ask myself,  "How in the world could I capture that movement, that dance without destroying its beauty?" 

My aim when I create is to honor the movement, the wind and the differences in it.  These differences, this otherness like the wind is unique, individual and independent. Yet, at the same time, it is part of a whole - a whole where not all things fit together like a jig saw puzzle, But, it is where everything fits because uniqueness and individuality are respected and honored. They are an "otherness," a difference that exists in chaos.

I deeply respect and see this uniqueness and individuality.  I respect and look for the independence that it can create for it is where I believe a freedom exists. Freedom should båe unfamiliar and abstracted like the wind.  This abstraction, this unfamiliarity connects and expands for me. As I begin a painting, I am extremely comfortable with it and how it moves and struggles and plays during the whole process of creating. I don’t try and catch it. Just like the trees, I try to dance with it and move with it. This unfamiliarity allows me to explore. It allows for me to have my own struggle. For me, I find the struggle extremely genuine and very authentic. I find sheer pleasure and erotic ecstasy in creating when I dance with the wind. I see the cards that I have been dealt and I play them when I can, and try to fold them when I can’t dance with the wind.

“I saw the rainbows in my studio and I danced with them.”