Someone asked me, “Why do you paint?” The short answer is, I love what I do. But the question deserves a more thoughtful response. The nature of my work is not practical, which makes it subject to scrutiny - not just the scrutiny of others, but even my own. I have questioned the value of what I do, relative to more practical pursuits, and have come to conclude that the arts play a significant role in our lives. They possess a kind of access to our souls that practical things do not. They can touch what we tend to neglect. Beauty, however small, is essential to our well-being. Even the most practical people can appreciate beautiful design in architecture and automobiles.
I don’t really think in terms of subject matter. I often throw fruit and vegetables into my grocery basket on the chance that I’ll want to use them in a painting. I think more about arranging shapes, colors and textures than I do objects, and what they look like under different kinds of light. The same is true with landscape painting. I’m usually looking for interesting shapes and values and what the light is doing. Ordinary things can be utterly transformed by Light. Even the most ugly things, can be made interesting and beautiful by it. Light has boundless possibilities. It can pour into a window and virtually absorb all the objects in its path, practically wiping their colors away by its dominance, or it can gently fall through a canopy of trees illuminating spots of foliage with rich, saturated color.
There is something in me that must respond visually to the beauty I see everywhere. That’s why I paint.
