The Heart of the Matter

I began painting more than 40 years ago. My first attempts were experimenting with oil painting. It soon occurred to me that oil was not the medium for me. It enabled me to keep covering over mistakes with more layers of oil. I could cover over and erase my mistakes too easily. It was like the mistake never happened. I had always heard how difficult watercolor was and that you could not make any mistakes with it because you could not cover them over.

It occurred to me that this is what life is all about, living with your mistakes instead of trying to erase them and with some creativity turn them into positive learning's and insights. I began experimenting with watercolor and soon found that with creativity and hard work the mistakes could become the heart of a good painting.

For me this has become a metaphor for life. For many years I thought I could cover up my mistakes and go on acting as if they never happened. Just keep talking and smiling and the mistake would somehow magically be erased. I learned about the eternal law of Cause and Effect and realized that every act ultimately produces consequences. It seemed that one purpose of the law is to teach us to use our mistakes as creatively as we can and integrate the learning into our life.

Every painting I do re-emphasizes that law. I have never done a painting that mistakes did not happen in the process. My on-going challenge is not only to integrate the mistake into the painting but also to find a way to use the mistake to increase the overall beauty of the picture.

This series of pictures represent a lot of mistakes. As I have learned over many years, recovery and maturity cannot happen without mistakes. These mistakes form the background of learning and the accumulation of wisdom that forms the strength of recovery. It is this accumulation that ultimately leads us into the awareness of serenity and joy.

My hope is the lessons I have learned and interpreted in these paintings will help others to learn to view their lives with more compassion and forgiveness for the mistakes they may have made.

All the paintings are 22" x 15". I use Windsor Newton watercolors and are done on 300 lb. Arches White paper. Almost all of them are already matted.