Abstract painting wants me.

My abstract painting practice is my mirror, my teacher, my lover.

It doesn’t give a sh*t that I can draw someone’s likeness to a T, or art direct a fashion shoot in Paris.

It offers me none of the comforts of parameters or rules.

It refuses to collude with my ego.

It doesn’t care what I know.

It just wants to give me the heart-racing rush of falling off the cliff into my unknown.

It wants me to discover, and discard, the ways I hold myself back.

It asks me to play with chaos over perfection, risk over certainty, curiosity over fear.

But I was the sensitive creative child of parents who carried the wounds of trauma from their alcoholic fathers.

My family had an unspoken contract that had been passed down through the generations of pain: be perfect to avoid criticism, avoid risks that might lead to mistakes, and don’t do anything that someone might not like.

Which meant don’t be so ME.

I carried that contract with me into adulthood, walking cautiously through life, harshly criticizing my missteps.

My abstract painting practice is not having it.

It wants ME, all of me.

Abstract is life wanting to provide me with an experience that will take my breath away.

It wants to play with my curiosity, and dance with my courage.

It wants to feel me- my love, my desire, my pleasure

and my vulnerability.

Abstract is life wanting all of me,

wanting me to put myself it its hands,

asking that I trust it.

Abstract is the Cosmic HIM-

The Masculine Champion-

wanting me to cherish HER the way HE does..