“Ready for My Close Up” 10×10 oil on gessoboard, $125 [button link=”http://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/denise-hopkins/ready-for-my-close-up/230446″ type=”big”] Buy Now[/button]

Revisited the blue heron today.  Close up.  Wondering what it would be like to have this kind of calmness in the chaos that surrounds me.

Daily painting has given me something to prioritize when countless demands are being made on my time and my wellness.  It’s made painting not something I do “after” but before or in the midst of.  It’s taught me what I like to paint and what I don’t.  “What do you like about art?” I used to ask my students.  Their answers varied but mine never wavered:  I like making a mark where once there was none.  This morning my panel was blank and now it’s not.  Perhaps a semblance of control when really I have none or clinging to some vague notion of power, but making a mark might just be, after all, a reminder that I am, indeed, human.  Humans make marks and ones who need to be reminded of that, need evidence, sometimes, I imagine, make art.