A New Series (and Hopefully, a New Me)

I’ve decided to do something radical: I’m going to focus.

Historically, my painting practice has been a little like an over-caffeinated tourist in a gift shop—dabbling here, picking up a bit of this, setting it down, moving on to something shiny. One day I’m oil painting, the next I’m knee-deep in interactive media, and by the end of the week, I’m wondering if I should get into wood carving or maybe just open a coffee shop. But this time, I’m committing to something consistent. A series. Of paintings. Of people. In Taos.

If you’ve ever been to Taos, you know that it’s the kind of place where the light does strange and poetic things, where people move at a pace that is simultaneously relaxed and urgent, where an old cowboy in a grocery store will recommend a specific type of canned bean to you with a level of conviction normally reserved for religious leaders. It’s a town where everyone is someone, or at least deeply convinced that they used to be. It’s a place that asks you to slow down—whether you want to or not.

So, I’m trying to listen. Trying to slow down. I want to paint people here in a way that feels quiet, meditative, and, above all, respectful.

This is new for me. Not the painting—God knows I’ve painted—but the discipline of it. The sitting with a single idea, day after day, resisting the itch to move on. There’s an art to staying still. I want to learn it.

Will I? Unclear. But at the very least, I’ll have some paintings to show for it. And if I can capture even a fraction of what makes this place, and its people, so quietly astonishing, maybe I’ll have learned something in the process.