| The older I grow and the more paintings I make, the more amazed I feel at the process and at my own good fortune in being compelled to make them. Every time I pull an image through from the wherever, which is it's source, and set it down so that it can be seen and shared, I feel delight and gratitude. It's a bit like midwifery. I see an image trying to come into the world, I do my best to help it birth itself, and then I study it and watch to see what it is, what it wants to be, and what it has to show me.
Receiving images, setting them down in paint, bringing them out to share, provides me my deepest connection to other people, to the earth and to my self. The images which visit me are primarily ones of people in relationship to each other, to themselves, and to their environment. They show me little moments in stopped time, they sing to me of their loss and their gain, their sorrow and their gratitude, their hopes, their loves and always of the mystery in the unfolding stories of their lives.
I have been painting and showing my work for nearly 40 years now, both in the Pacific Northwest where I lived for many years and in the Blue Ridge Mountains of East TN and Southwest Virginia where I grew up and where I make my home once again. I live in Bristol, TN with my husband and work from a studio in our home. I welcome inquiries about the paintings at ejohns@btesnet.com.
|