Instinct

With painting, there is always a chance that no matter what you do, it just may work in a way that you would never expect.

If you trust your instinct, you will most likely be right.

If you doubt yourself for one second, you will surely be wrong.

Belief

Painting is a system of belief.
Sountine's "Landscape at Ceret" at the Baltimore museum of Art, has fascinated me because, it seems to have a logic of its own.

When the painting begins to operate in this way, I am amazed. Like meditation, I really don't know how it got to that state, nor could I ever reproduce it.

Chance

Painting is my own personal outlet, where things have the chance to come out exactly the way that I want.
Painting has to be a full surrender to God.

Space / Form / Light

If you have truly found your form, the whole world of everything should be opened up to you. Anything that crosses your mind can be incorporated, Anything. Creating the world of light is the central role for the painter.
Just looking at the natural world and its colors, shows me the harmonic relationships of these things. Almost everything I see in nature is modulated.
If you can see how to modulate on the pallet, this will bring the scale to the front.

I like the idea of achieving space in ways that don't make any sense at all. Think of setting up a relation of harmonic grays and then just float a saturated color that just hovers over there in space.

I love it when space just presents itself. The smallest inflection could change the whole thing.

Content

Content reveals itself in strange ways. Ways which I would not have predicted. If you focus on the light, this alone will create the world, not the image. I'm interested in the whole world.

When I look at a Poussin painting, I do not see an image. When I look at a Rubens painting, I do not see an image. I see a painting. Poussin digs deep into antiquity, distills those classical forms and fits them permanently into his contemporary world of his classic love. The trees are just as important structure as the figures. The story told has been repeated many times, but he wants to see them fit together where all the pieces flow in this world of his own.

As a song need to be like a spell, so does a painting, A painting needs to create a world in its own way.

Sensation

I am fascinated by what tiny inflection will make the whole picture unify.
I start always with a sensation. It is impossible to conceive in my mind what will work. My mind must be clear of concepts and ideas. I must trust my instincts however ridiculous it might seem. As I paint, my mind becomes more clear. Clear to the point of meditation. This meditation allows me to confident about every move I make. At this point, there is no such thing as a mistake.

Harmony is an associative process that can only be seen and done, All these things just kind of happen by themselves. I trust that the content, the real content, (not subject matter) is somehow in there. At this point you just got kicked out.

I love the way Ryder will write a poem to accompany his paintings. I wonder which came first?

Prism

I like to think of painting as squeezing out prismatic elements that create light amongst each other to describe in a way that cannot otherwise be described.

Paradise

It's amazing how Dante can describe paradise without cheapening the overwhelming effect of eternity. What promoted him to write this book. I think his beautiful description of heaven could only be done had he some kind of religious of higher consciousness experience.

Theory

Try to imaging a composer writing a melody based on music theory. This knowledge will surly help, but the communication of the spirit must work associatively. Moving from one tone to the next with a gaze set on some glimpse that you thought you saw.

I like to read in the studio in front of an unfinished painting. It helps me sort things out. There is a drama going on, but it is not literal, it must be felt.

Painting is a constant focusing and refocusing toward that very element. The whole and the part must be in perfect tension.

Things cannot be depicted, they must fall into place at the right time. I have to be prepared to move the composition quickly enough to do so.

Realm of Time

Painting exist outside the realm of time. I am transported back and forth aligning myself to artists who existed in any age.

Reading the classics makes it very clear, the central role of literature in civilization.