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About process: The opening stanza of William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" captures how I feel when looking at a work in progress: To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour. The opening lines celebrate the potential found in small beginnings—the way something seemingly insignificant can contain entire universes of meaning. But Blake's poem doesn't stay in this transcendent space - it progresses into darker territory, exploring themes of corruption, cruelty, and the loss of innocence (it’s worth a read). This progression mirrors my own painting process in ways that are both comforting and unsettling. Like Blake's poem, paintings can begin with infinite possibility—so much potential in those early stages of figuring out what it will become. My paintings are intuitive; I rarely have a plan. Sometimes there's a whole world contained in just a fragment of vision, just as Blake found eternity in an hour. But I never know where the initial marks will lead. Will the painting remain in that state of pure potential, or will it venture into more complex, perhaps troubled territory (it’s fate to be sanded down and gessoed over, making room for something new). The uncertainty is both the struggle and the beauty of the creative process—holding that grain of sand, not knowing whether it will reveal something peaceful and resolved or something far more complicated.
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