Standing in the Middle of the Work
Recently, I placed the paintings from this series around me and spent time with them all at once.
Not to evaluate them. Not to decide what was working or what needed fixing. Just to stand inside the field they’ve created and listen to what was happening between them.
What I noticed wasn’t a conclusion — it was movement.
I began to see how much I’ve changed in the way I allow things to remain. Earlier in the series, I pushed more — adding, revising, insisting on density or drama. Standing among the work now, I could feel a growing restraint. Fewer marks carrying more weight. Softness doing real labor.
I noticed that the quieter paintings weren’t empty. They were holding. The fog wasn’t obscuring so much as suspending — allowing multiple readings to coexist without resolving into one.
I also felt a shift in my own trust. Paintings that came easily no longer felt suspect. Difficulty no longer felt like proof. Both began to register as information rather than judgment.
Some paintings felt loud. Others were almost whispering. There were tensions I hadn’t seen before, and moments of softness I didn’t remember making. The marks were beginning to speak to one another across the room, forming relationships I hadn’t planned.
I could see where I’d become more restrained. Where I’d allowed more to remain visible. Where I’d stopped trying to resolve things too cleanly. The work felt less concerned with arriving somewhere and more invested in staying open.
Being in the middle of a series is a strange place to stand. There’s enough clarity to know you’re moving in the right direction — and enough uncertainty to keep you from naming the destination.
I don’t feel finished. I don’t feel lost.
I feel engaged.
There’s a quiet trust building — not in outcomes, but in the process itself. In the way the work responds when I show up honestly and without urgency. In the way it shifts when I give it time.
I’m learning to stay with that in-between space — the place where things are still forming, still asking questions, still capable of changing.
This series isn’t asking me to stand outside it and explain what it means.
It’s asking me to remain inside it, attentive and present, and to let meaning emerge when it’s ready.
