The Hidden Treasure House

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First-Place Winner, Abstract Art, Bold Brush Competition

Acrylic on Canvas, 28" x 28"

$3,500

I've been revisiting childhood memories all my long life, but now it seems a new door has opened in this treasure house. I'm astonished.

Here's what it looks like. 

Over and over again lately, I've stepped back from a painting and thought, "Good grief. That's Asian. Where did that come from?" or "Have I just painted a kimono pattern?" In case you haven't noticed, there is an almost-Asian aspect to the curves, colors and elements in my work, especially the most recent work.  I've realized these things come from somewhere: a deep consciousness formed long ago.

My father was a fighter pilot who was stationed in Tokyo in 1950, during the Korean War. My mother was there with him. She was enthralled by Japanese culture, and she loved the people. She relished their holidays and rituals and exotic differences from America. When it was time for them to come home, she piled their shipping space high with Japanese textiles, prints, brass, furniture, clothes, dolls, ceramics ... By the time I was born, my parents lived in suburban Houston, but my world was filled with treasures from Japan.

I didn't choose any of this. I didn't especially even notice all these things around our home (except to help dust them). And yet, decades later, their echoes have filled my canvases. When I finally put two and two together, I was so, so surprised. 

And my mother wove her love for these precious Eastern mysteries into the fabric of my world. Even after she has been gone for years, I still have many of her things. Even the colors she chose in our home were a testament to the Asian beauty she adored: mossy green walls with brilliant scarlet accents in the room; creamy white ceramics against black lacquer. 

I can't tell you how many times I still dust her things and think, "WHY am I keeping all these things I didn't choose? Do other people do this? Is this nuts?"

And what I've come to realize, just in my studio, doing my regular work, is that my child mind formed its ideals of beauty from these colors, carvings and motifs from Japan. These things - not of my culture - have created a world in the space where my ideas of beauty were born. And they're not leaving. They're coming forth, in ever surprising ways, every day in my work.

I'm about 10 paintings into this current series, and they just keep hovering in this Floating World zone of hidden memory.  The things that are appearing in my studio surprise me every day.

I have zero doubt you have a secret treasure house inside you, too.  Take time to explore it next time you're driving somewhere, or about to fall asleep, or waiting in a waiting room. Invite the door to open. Something and someone coaxed your idea of beauty into being. What's beautiful to you? Why?  Send me a message. I would love to know.

Want more thoughts about art, about making it and the surprises it brings us? You can find that here.