The ACT of Painting

A painter paints with a number of different processes, depending on their mood, their goal, perhaps even the direction they've been given by a client. Promoting your work to hang in a gallery or a juried exhibition, takes on another direction a painter must consider before he takes brush to canvas or paper. I've been painting for over 35 years now and my process has changed over and over again, as much as my painting style. You grow as an artist, as you experience Life as an Artist. Somber paintings might uncover a somber artist with many challenges in his or her life he is living at the time or a time that the artist draws from. Or it could be totally made up, like an actor, depending on the direction the painting must go in, the painter puts on a mask and becomes what she or he feels compelled to paint. The ACT of Painting is such a magical place to be. I love it and can't wait each time, till that moment my hands are connected to my brush, canvas and paint, the silky smell of oil paint surrounds me (toxic eeek) and the process begins to formulate. I LOVE MY LIFE and appreciate how lucky I am ~ because there will be a time, that this is all a memory... not all that long in the future ~ God Bless us all, to be graceful in that time, because it will truly be tortuous and we will put on Another Mask, for the Last Act.