I open my studio door...

I open my studio door with anticipation, fear, excitement; Judgment sits on a stool in the back of the room, where I've placed him, focused on some intellectual game to keep his mind off of me.  Doubt lies on the couch, hidden under a blanket.  I face the canvas and take up a brush, paints, other materials, and the hundred little ideas and images from my day-to-day life, my dreams, the books and articles I've read, the thoughts I've entertained myself with; everything that I've been stirring in the cauldron of my imagination. 

Finally, I face the canvas and take a deep breath and then I embrace faith.  The faith that I am indeed pursuing who I am and what has been asked of me; the faith that what I do has meaning and purpose; the faith that maybe, somehow, my work will help illuminate some small corner of someone's life, bring just a little light, a bit of understanding, a degree of love and compassion, some warmth, maybe, to the cold certainties of our created world.

And then, I'm in it, of it, I am it.  I am connected and flowing because I am part of this glorious, awesome, beautiful, terrible, love-filled life.  I am doing who I am, being what I was meant to be.  I swim in images and energy and purpose.  And so, my paintings are my prayers and my answers; and not mine, really.  And this is Joy.