I try to let go of thinking when I paint – it is a very physical act. I touch the paints, I pick up the colors, the materials that I might add to the paint – water, glue, sand, salt, string, bits of dried paint, wire – and I get a sense of what comes next. Like a dance where I only know the next step in the dance. As I paint, I see in terms of movement in space, movement in color, movement on the canvas. And I am observing what is already on the canvas. I am choosing elements in terms of movement between layers.
Sometimes I have a particular experience or event in mind when I create a painting. And this is true of the smaller paintings. But more often the experience will shift and change as I work on the painting. I am working in larger canvases now and it takes weeks and sometimes months to complete. So then the painting becomes the site of the discussion of the text of a novel. It is as if I have read through a good book and painted my way through scenes and moods. The final result is the culmination of all of that. Some of the earlier scenes are partially covered by later layers, but the essence of them peeks through and creates depth in the final result.