Blog: Seeking Freedom and Individuality

Featured image: Sunny Day at the Beach

Two ideas inspire and challenge me to paint every day: freedom and individuality. If I can’t find these two ideas – in myself, in my hand, in the uniqueness of my work – then an artwork is not successful for me.

What do I mean by freedom?  Freedom needs to be as open as a child’s mind when they are choosing which color from a box of 100 different crayons.  Freedom is filled with the endless possibilities of that color – a cow could be colored green, or a person could be colored orange and purple. Freedom asks nothing of the green cow, freedom expects nothing from the orange and purple person, and freedom does not depend on judgement for value. Perhaps this explains my preference for conceptual abstraction when I create artwork.

For an artist, the act of creating with complete freedom is an act of independence – individuality with no coercive interference. I guess that would explain why I am not a fan of “statement” art such as words or phrases presented as art.  For an artist, to create a work freely is to create based on the individual artist’s choices, not on external forces. External forces limit the artist’s individuality and ability to place themselves within the work they are creating. 

Freedom is choice and choice is not following the influence of others but rather following your own heart – your individuality. This freedom of choice to express your individual uniqueness is so fundamental to freedom that, to me, it becomes a sense of morality.

This is what I seek when I create – to be free, to be me, to be creative and seek my heart, my vision, my choice – always seeking the endless freedom of my own creative possibilities.