I create art because - well - I have a need to: there are always images and ghosts of ideas hovering just out of reach somewhere in my subconscious, and sometimes they spill onto a blank canvas or compel me to stop and photograph something I may have otherwise simply walked past.
My art-making process is very organic; somewhere between vivid and ethereal, whispered and clamorous, thoughts take shape and spill into color and texture. Letting my hands wander over canvas or across a digital display allows me to make peace with powerful emotions inside. These emotions – hurt, joy, hope, regret, love now as well as all the loves already gone – like phantom limbs that refuse to go away but cannot quite be articulated, are finally made tangible when expressed with my hands. They can be put away then - or spurred on into action; they are given relief, and they are given release.
Brush strokes heal; the pigment serves as a balm of sorts: gliding over and smoothing out scars and chinks in my armor.
Art is peace.
Or at least a raft over the turbulence below.