There are fragments of time, which glue themselves into my mind with their perfection.  I get a feeling - for that moment that my existence is exactly as it is supposed to be.  The feeling seems to wash over me like a soothing wave.  I’m never certain of the source, the rocks, sand, trees, flowers or the wildlife - when I know I am an element in their world rather than them being part of mine.  In these moments, I feel I am a prism for them and my desire to create is a required extension and a magnification of the light and reflections of their world that surround me.  

My work begins with the process of dreaming.  I cannot say that my dreams are the average kind.  I travel to new places, I meditate, draw and paint, I dive, and I have conversations with people from the past and with things that do not generally speak.

My dreams are a place of magic, remove the velvet covering of reality and see what floats beneath.  In my dreams I ask my wiser self childlike questions, what is the tree saying, what does the flower see, if I could breath under water how would I be different, can I paint the stories a dolphin tells me.  My dreams tell me stories filled with images so clear that I feel I have experienced it. 

But then real experiences spill over into my dreams and add to the catalogue of thoughts and images.   Once, when I was hiking predawn down the jungle path to temple 5 at Tikal (to arrive at the top of the temple in time to see the sunrise and hear the rainforest come to life) I was a foot taller than my Guatemalan guide and catching some rather large and elaborate spider webs in the face.  I stopped inches short of a very large spider - caught in my light at eye level.  His web spotted with drops of rain from a shower we had had only moments earlier.  I held him in the light to admire his stripes and coloring and the amazingly large and detailed web he had created in the few hours since sunset.  Then what caught my eye was that the web looked like a perfect music score that spiraled out from its center and the glistening drops of rain were the notes.  I decided his named was Mozart, ducked under his web and continued down the trail leaving him to continue his work.  That night in my dreams, he was humming a tune as he created another web and the jungle nightlife was following his melodic score.  I have never known a more beautiful and soulful spider. 

This – children, is why some artist do not do drugs.  Some of us see things that are not really there…. on a daily basis.

The painting was named Mozart, I never explained why.  I over heard a comment at the show from a viewer, “Why would anyone hang a big painting of a spider in their home?  That is just macabre and creeps me out.”  I walked away, poured a glass of wine and thought - that is why I paint for myself, I saw him as beautiful and amazing, and she saw him as grizzly and threatening.  Later I felt recharged when I discovered a musician had bought it.    

...Life...

 

 

 

 

 
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