Destroy your art!

 Why do I paint patterns and then damage them? Distress them?

Maybe it's my love of history. Finding buried treasures that have been brought to light. Worn and well-loved pieces of....something. Something bigger. Something lost.

 Maybe it's loving the look of old barns and houses. Wondering about the lives that lived there. Looking at old photographs and putting yourself in that time, that place, feeling how the air felt and the way the wind smelled

 Maybe it's because we all carry scars. Parts that are covered up, parts that have been broken. Parts that are still breaking....Maybe this is why I paint patterns, bright colors....and why I destroy them, sand them down, smear the paint, muddy the colors and take sharpened blades and chip away at the surface....to reveal a different, stranger beauty. A beauty revealed in age and endurance.

 Maybe it's a way of painting time and life.....remembering other lives, places and times.

Maybe it's a way to reveal a truth....that I have yet to discover or name.....but I know that it's out there because I see it shining in the broken pieces of things that remain....