As I paint each line, it is a meditation. I watch the steadiness of my hand change over time, and repaint each line, sometimes 4 or 5 times, to make it come alive. It is a peaceful practice for me to work among the colors. I get in a rhythm with them. Sometimes boredom creeps in, and I go back to my intention to understand the way I falter as a human, and the way I keep showing up again.
My favorite thing is when a child sits in front of these. “How many lines do you see,” I will ask. “A million,” one will say. “No, a billion.” I think that is how I feel most times: life is so vast, and I, both so minuscule and all that is, … simultaneously.
Aging Eyes, Hands
What can a simple line reveal? I was once a graphic designer – before the use of computers. If I wanted an outline around a photograph, I would use my young, perfectly partnered hand-eye coordination and 20/20 eyesight to pen one with my Rapidiograph technical pen. Some 25 years later, I now enjoy this work in which painting a line shows the little waiver of my hand as my eyes struggle to keep up with the long-stored motor engrams of my hands. Have I had one too many cups of coffee? The lines will tell me. Rested? Clear-headed? It’s all there. I love doing this work: staying true to my craft with conscious color choices and refined layers, while also allowing these subtle traces of time to reveal themselves without judgement, with celebration of the now.
