Writers say they often aren’t in control of their characters, that they are channels through which stories enter our world. This is how I feel about painting. I have ideas, I guide the paint and control it – but sometimes a painting has a life of its own and I have to let it be. Chasmata surprised me: so divergent from my usual method and unlike so many of my paintings. And while I usually see the form or object in my paintings as hovering, I get a feeling of speed here.

“Furthermore, there are chasmata, when as sometimes a space of the heavens openeth itself and gaping wide seemeth as it were in the secret thereof to shew a burning flame.” ~ Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones