The inspiration for humans to make art is fascinating to me. Where does the desire to do it come from? How does the artist know what to make or how to make it? And how does an artist achieve the undefinable mystery of a successful work? I feel it happens in non-thinking moments as one is applying tool to substrate when intuitive decisions are made that the magic is accessed. Aside from the conceptualizing, the influences, the skills, and the education of the artist, it's those moments of following an inner prompting, an inkling, a knowing where to make the mark, or what color it needs to be that create the energy of the finished work. The success of a painting depends upon allowing the decisions made in those moments and keeping the logical mind quiet. When I create a painting, I trust those moments to lead me to the finished work I hope for. The paintings are an exaltation of this process.
Early European Renaissance painting is the primary influence of my work. Its reverent portrayal of Christian spiritual tenets and stories is akin to the spiritual connection tapped into in the creative process of making art. Inspiration to religious devotion is the same to me as inspiration to create a work of art.
The paintings portray a woman creating something, or seeding her imagination with reading or dreaming, and light is pouring through the window from nature, a symbol of the creative source of life. I reference the myth of Danae and the story of the Virgin Mary. Many of my paintings are inspired by the story of the Annunciation - a female human, fertile biologically and spiritually, is interacting with light, the divine energy that brings all things about, in an environment filled with creations (rugs, paintings, furniture) and surrounded by Nature. She is inspired to create something and is a creation herself, part of the natural world.
Including the work of other artists I admire in my paintings is a way of feeling connected to the esprit de corps of artists throughout history, and thoroughly examining their work through copying it deepens my admiration.