It's All About Love

"Passaggio" - oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in, La Crema Estate at Saralee's Vineyard

For me, moving paint around on a surface is an exercise of an intuitive, intimate relationship with oil paint, color and my painting knife. It is similar to sitting in my oversized and out-of-date stuffed chair where I journal and meditate, and where my cat sits near my head on the back of the chair, purring. Yeah, painting is like purring.
 
I think about all of the various aspects of my life while I am painting, a series of  lovely, annoying, gritty, fabulous and regrettable episodes that are part of my collective existence, while I simultaneously critically consider color, line, space, harmony and balance. “Life” sits on the back burner in a big stew pot sharing space with my psyche, the painting process, and all the classical decisions and comparisons that create a piece of art.
 
Today I’m pondering about how much the elements in the stew pot have to do with the final outcome of a painting, how “life” might become mashed up into the paint, and how the essence the life of an artist could perhaps reside forever, interlinked within the layers of paint, gesso and substrate of an artwork. Speaking for myself, I am painting the stew pot of  L I F E.  And it’s all about love.

Jill Keller Peters ​