Exhaling

People often ask me if I paint every day. My answer is, "Sometimes." For whatever reason, I've never been a person who handles routine well, but it's more than just that. I'll cruise along and then suddenly stumble on an empty well right where I'd been finding inspiration for weeks. Then - I do something else.

Sometimes kids' schedules or a family vacation need to take precedence. Other times, I intentionally concentrate on writing, so painting gets pushed aside. (It happens the other way around, too.) Plenty of times, I just feel used up, and need to wait for the well to fill up again.

Dry spells - that's what I thought they were - used to worry me deeply. In my first few years as a painter, every time I lost my creative momentum I wondered if I'd ever find it again. At last I noticed that, like a wandering cat, it always comes home eventually. So at that point I began to relax into a rhythm of producing, and - noticing.

I've come to appreciate my times of soaking up impressions. I realize that I do a lot of work during these times, consciously or unconsciously exploring compositions suggested in everything I see around me. In fact, I do a lot of painting while I drive - but I don't think I'll get pulled over for it, since it all takes place in my head. It's like breathing - taking in images, producing work.

Recently I lost a very dear old friend to cancer. I made a twelve-hour road trip to say good-bye to her, and then a month later drove the same road again to her memorial service. Twelve hours on the road is a long time to gather images and impressions. I knew the initial trip and its purpose changed me, but I had no idea how richly the road itself had blessed me until I returned home to a new purpose, a new format, new colors and textures. I took a really deep breath there on the road to my friend - and now I'm singing.