movement

2' x 3' detail of an oil painting I'm working on.  

This painting is 4.5' square. I've been working on it for a LONG time, and it's finally getting somewhere. There are parts of the painting I like now. I keep those parts, try to piece the rest of the painting together to fit the parts I like, occasionally discover that the parts I like no longer fit, so paint over them. It sometimes feels like I could keep going, painting over things, forever, but it does seem to head to an endpoint eventually.

The act of painting fills me with a feeling I don't get anywhere else. It's a churning mixture of meditative peace, complex pattern recognition, critical thought, observation, memory, and the constant excitement of stepping into the unknown. All that combined together... I would call it a highly active state of bliss.

I hope painting never becomes a chore to me. I hope every brushstroke continues to be a question, rather than a premeditated statement.

I hope my life keeps going that way as well.