Each of these works is a taut negotiation. I set out with my vision, and then must come to terms with how the moment, the medium, and the process alter that vision. It’s humbling. I make concessions. I guide the work to what it tells me it wants to be using a blow torch, a palette knife, and gravity to coax it, sometimes to trick it.

I find making these works, then, an analog for the act of living itself- expectation vs reality, coming to terms with the limits of your control over circumstance. Or akin to what I imagine performing improvisational music is like- your subservience to the moment.

When all is right, we (the painting and I) find peace with one another, even as the end result often evinces tumult. I find the aftermath of the conflict beautiful, almost always.