When pressed to think about myself as an artist, I often forget that the first thing I believed myself to be was a painter. But I never knew “what to paint” – I think I always thought myself into a corner so to speak, until I wasn’t painting at all. I often find my best creativity comes around when I don’t think or the tools are so foreign to me I can’t get in front of them. My en plein air afternoon with Leslie reminded me that you can just look at what’s in front of you and paint it. And you don’t have to paint the thing, you can paint the color or the light or the feeling in front of you, you can disregard shapes or abandon rendering and just respond.

It is funny how sometimes you just need another person to invite you or lead you somewhere that is right in front of you, completely available all along. It is as though I had been fumbling with too many keys trying to unlock a door that was actually ajar. In any case, I made a painting that day I actually liked. And while I haven’t made another en plein air painting since, writing this reflection reminds me that I have a beautiful lagoon in front of me every day, I should go outside and paint it. The very reason in fact this art school (I work for and live at – Ox-Bow) was founded: to paint the lagoon and landscape around it, en plein air.