Painting stories

Someone posted a comment one of my painting videos today. They said, '“Your paintings are not just drawings, they are stories hanging on walls told without words.” I love that and that is exactly right. People connect to the art because of the story it tells them. Or the painting could also remind them of their own story. We all connect to things for certain reasons. It’s not about making a perfect painting. It’s not even about the mediums I use. Creating art that invites connection is what it’s all about. I create to work out life. I paint scenes that make me feel good, or brings back a recent or far distant memory. Creating provides space in my mind to breathe. Painting opens the mind to possibilities. If you are creating openly and loose in your process and realize it’s not about you, but it’s about what the thing you create can do for someone else. How it could speak to someone. How it could help you work out a problem. We paint stories also by naming the painting with a title that could spark a thought. Someone people connect just looking at the image. Some people it’s about the colours the artist used, or the way the light hits the trees, or the texture of the flowers that reminds them of their grandmother’s garden. For artists, painting stories is similar to how an author writes a book or a musician composes a song. We are all telling stories using our medium of choice.