Some things take time. Real time. Not the rushed, compressed, deadline-driven kind — but the slow, patient, unhurried time that a project of genuine meaning quietly demands. And sometimes, looking back at where something began, the distance traveled is almost difficult to believe.
The project that started in October 2013 is finally going to be finished.
Over a decade in the making. Think about that for a moment. The world has changed considerably since 2013. Seasons have turned, life has shifted, the artist behind the brush has grown and evolved in ways that couldn’t have been predicted when the very first canvas of this series was begun. And yet the thread has never been dropped. Through everything — through other projects, other travels, other seasons of creativity — this one has quietly persisted, waited, called back.
The last paintings are currently in progress. Moreover, they are almost ready — close enough to feel the finish line, far enough to still deserve full attention and care. There is a particular kind of emotion that lives in this stage of a long project. Not quite relief, not quite celebration. Something more bittersweet and contemplative. The awareness that something you have carried for a very long time is about to be set down, complete, whole, released into the world.
At the moment I can’t say more about what it is or what it means. And no — it’s not a secret. It’s simply that I have always believed some things are better spoken about when they are truly ready. When the full picture can be shared rather than fragments. There is a time for process and a time for revelation, and I have learned, sometimes the hard way, to respect the difference. The meaning, the story, the intention behind this project — all of that will come. Soon.
For now, I’m inviting you into something more immediate and honest: the studio. In all its wonderful, creative, gloriously imperfect mess. Because behind every finished work there is a space that looks nothing like the final painting — there are half-squeezed tubes of paint, brushes in various states of loyalty, canvases leaning against walls in quiet conversation with each other, the particular smell of linseed oil and turpentine that means work is happening and something is alive.
Welcome to the mess. This is where it all becomes real. ????
