Ok. This one is just going to be random thoughts.

I am sitting out back in my yard, on a spring evening. A storm has blown through, and I feel lucky to be alive. We got some rain, but nothing like what other people experienced. There are many people in this country that died in this powerful weather system that moved across the country. If I hadn’t been listening to the radio, or watching the news, I wouldn’t be able to tell that anything had happened. The birds are singing with all their hearts, the bushes are in bloom, and all seems perfectly spring like. I guess with all the catastrophies that have been going on lately, I sometimes wonder about writing about painting. It could seem superficial.

But, then, art is really important in the scheme of things. It can settle you down like a nice cup of tea. It can evoke many emotions, and they are all valid. I think if people didn’t create works of art that appealed to the senses, we would lose hope. Art is tangible. It is a reminder that there is beauty in this world. Even with all the destruction and corruption, beauty sneaks through.

I am looking at the soft light of the evening. Every evening is different. Every cloud mass, every sunset, the last birds to come to the feeders, the last birds to sing goodnight. They are all unique. Tonight, the air still has some humidity. But the feel and sounds are that of a quiet night. The Keria bush is loaded with beautiful yellow blossoms, the tulips are really coming into peak with colors ranging from yellow to orange and purple. The redbuds and magnolias are laden with blossoms, and the lilacs are getting ready to burst and perfume the air.

Why then, with all this beauty, do I sometimes feel guilty about waxing poetic about art? Because I know that for everything beautiful, there is an opposite. So the conundrum continues. Around and around.

At this point, I feel like creating art is my job. I have done many things in my lifetime, and here I am now, feeling like I hit the jackpot for work. It is what I love and want to do everyday.

I have seen artists go through drastic changes in style in their lifetime. I’ve seen painters go from chronicling the most beautiful landscapes ever, to painting the harsh cityscapes of factories and pollution in dark, dreary colors. The message was clear. I got it.

I choose to focus on the mysterious beauty of the every day life. The tree trying to hang on to its life force after a long life of crippling winds and winter storms. I saw a photo of a beautiful ornamental tree in full bloom while in the midst of devastation and destruction in the aftermath of the Japan crisis. There it was, maybe for the last time, coming through debris and devastation. Still spectacular.