Painting What We Love

Many art teachers tell us to paint what we love, what we feel passionate about. Besides my loved ones, here is what I most care about.

When I was young, coordinated, athletic, and dancing, I took all that for granted. Now that BPPV and arthritis pain and stiffness  mean the end of dancing for me, I paint people in motion, especially dancers, and dream of freedom of movement. After much suffering and hard work, I have finally achieved a degree of personal serenity, and I paint romantic landscapes in the hopes of expressing and maintaining that serenity.

In terms of society, I care about the environment and social justice. It is difficult to make a painting that expresses a political viewpoint, and it is nearly impossible to convince people who believe otherwise that protecting the environment and increasing social justice are morally right and actually in their own self-interest. If you can’t change people’s minds, then any political painting is “preaching to the choir.” So far, I have not attempted to paint my feelings and thoughts about the environment or social justice.