This oil painting, Everything is You, was the first major painting to sell during my show at Hughes Gallery in January.

It was a struggle to paint and came to me like a dream ebbing and flowing out of my consciousness. You know, the kind of dream that comes upon awakening. Elusive and fragile, pirouetting on the threshold of remembering and forgetting.

Everything is You is an attempt to grasp that ethereal, dream-like imagery and make it tangible. I think it is where I am in my art after decades of painting, of striving for perfection and understanding.

The representational art I most enjoy is seeing the artist know their subject, and paint it with feeling and verisimilitude–the ring of truth. Authenticity comes from digging deep, exploring secular and spiritual realms of human existence. We are just a flicker of light in eternity’s time. I celebrate the sublime nuance of being alive in my paintings.

We had a tremendous successful show this year, selling fourteen of sixteen paintings. I am truly grateful. It is difficult making a living as an artist. There are times I almost gave up. But then I would think, what choice do I have? There was no alternative. My soul would wither and die if I did not paint almost every day. In times of torment, I’d walk the beach, asking what will I do? God would always answer back. “Just paint.”

My paintings are an external expression of my inner spiritual practice. The miraculous processes in nature, from the birth of a butterfly to the huge cosmic questions of our universe and our own very being, blow my mind.

Life’s complexities mitigate certainty. I no longer can say what is or what isn’t, or carve “It” in stone. Doctrines and divisive debates muddy the water when I seek clarity and calmness. If I walk the wrong path, my soul is in peril.

But I believe, Everything is You.