This has been a busy year in the studio! It started with the first painting here, Murmurations of Bluebirds of Happiness. It was actually from a painting I created years ago, but was never completely satisfied with the way it turned out (Jumping Over the Fray, 2018) and then repainted again in a more abstract way (2021). This huge canvas had been hanging in District Arts for about a year, and when I repatriated it back into the studio, I took the paintbrush to it yet again. For a moment it had a black horse galloping through the center, but that never really captured the dynamic nature of the roiling composition. And so, in a flash of bird wings in my mind, I painted the fluttering ball of bluebirds. Finally, after three different incarnations, the piece found itself. And this was the start to a year of many large-scale pieces that incorporated big, bright color, lots of line-work with my small brush and a little pot of thinned out black paint, and also small, primal paintings that feel more spiritual that representational.