Portland Bridge

This is the Morrison Bridge located in Downtown Portland. We set up our easels on location, on the Waterfront Park Trail on the west side of the Willamette River facing north. I ended up finishing it in the studio weeks later, where it turned in to a different painting entirely. I used my imagination to complete the painting.

Ultimately, I found an alternative way to make up for information which otherwise would have been lost to time. I found another means in which to inform myself. I did away with the physical and instead accessed my mind. I found that I can use color emotionally. Subject matter can be anything I choose it to be. How I choose to apply my brushstrokes are now informed by my emotions and my imagination. The less literal I become (the less representational) and the more I am able to "feel" what I am doing and how I am doing it, the more I am able to "be" in the moment with that very thing I am doing. Perhaps, authenticity has more of a chance to bubble-up to the surface. Art is most useful when it is about the simple act of doing––the end result (the physical painting) is somehow beside the point. 

I can load my brush with paint or I can load it with emotion––or both.