I quit painting

for many years after my first try. Time went by and life had other things in store for me, what we in hindsight call life experience. It is an essential part of creative art, a bucket of resources that we use to fill our art with. When I first started out 30 years ago that bucket was close to empty, or maybe I didn't have the understanding to find out what was in it.

When I paint I usually have a sketch to help me get started, but I don't have the final product pictured in my mind. I sometimes have a vision of what it will be like, but during the process that vision becomes something else. The end result is a product of my intentions, my mood, the way the paint comes out on the canvas, the structure of the canvas, and the opportunities of the sketch that at first were hidden from me.

I don't paint with my brain, I paint with my hands and my open senses. That is also why I can't just dig into the bucket and produce a painting, it has to come to me in one way or the other. When I am able to work freely, with an open mind absorbing impressions, combined with my ability to mix the paint and spread it, that is when creation is truly at work. At times like that there is a bond between me and the painting and not a barrier.

I am not in control of every part of the process, I am the tool making it happen.