With the lead up to launching my website and our fast approaching exhibition, I have been caught up in the ‘business’ of art.  It has been exciting and rewarding in a number of ways, however I am yearning to get back to my paints, to my oils. 

Today I have been putting the final varnishing touch on a number of paintings for the exhibition and that is always exciting as it seems to bring out the richness of the oil colours.  I have also  recently started a watercolour class, so there have actually been brushstrokes but just not in my true love, and that is in oils.  I find that when I paint with them it balances me and it is just something I need to do.  An addiction?  An obsession?  Something I love.  And while I can still function, now that I have unearthed this window to my soul, for my soul, I feel on edge and out of balance without this outlet. 

For me, there is something about the vibrance of oil colours, the directness of painting and the space that I get into when I am painting, that I love.  And again I return to Thomas Merton’s saying …”Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”