DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A REALIST?

Only in that I am obsessed with detail. Ever since childhood I've enjoyed spending hours at a time down on my belly in the weeds or woods looking at lichen on rocks, scales on fish, snake spit on weeds, bug wings, and whatever else I can find. In the house I focus on quilt tops, typeface, and the steam and drip patterns on the tile in the bath. There is nothing I enjoy more than spending an hour in the garden with a magnifying loupe spying on spiders and snails. Painting very small things is a way for me to learn them.

Horses, dogs, humans, etc., are so familiar to my touch that when I need to, I can feel their shapes behind my eyes in a way that makes them available for painting. The shapes can go from behind my eyes right to my brush without ever having to pass through my brain. Because a wasp or a grasshopper is too small for me to learn with my fingers, the best way to learn its shape is not with the tips of my fingers but with my brush on canvas. If there are locusts in a painting, it's likely that the year it was painted was a good year for locusts. The biblical implications are just gravy.