The Joy of Inspiration

"The longer I live, the more I realize that each one is only unto himself... Sometimes I shudder to see how lonely a person is in the universe. Only the noise, the tumult and the constant competition make me overlook this realization. The condition of the artist is immeasurably superior. The joy of inspiration puts your feeling of loneliness at a remote distance, and you imagine that life shall never end. But to create is possible only when you can trust that you create for someone or for some thing, that you are not surrounded by lies, and not building upon a deceptive foundation."

This is a quote from a letter my father sent me a year before he passed away, at the age of 94. And the longer I live, the more I realize the depth of the truth in it.

Here is my first painting in oil from several years back. It shows the surfaces from above: the wooden table upon which I work, and the grey floor barely visible underneath, with the puddle of black paint spreading on it; which in my mind is like a 'thought bubble' for cartoon characters. Here, the cartoon characters are my tools: the jar where the turpentine swishes around and the paintbrushes that seem to travel in some direction across the surface. 

To hear my very first radio interview click here.