This is an example of the paintings I make in between the paintings I feel like I want to show people.

I typically do them fast, usually in a series of 6 or 8 or 10 at one sitting. Black acrylic on drawing paper.

They’re not trying to be anything. They’re not trying to convey anything. Pure unfiltered stream of consciousness.

I don’t intend to make them relate to each other, but often certain themes appear. A particular shape might show up in more than one piece. Or morph from one to the next. It’s fascinating to see what comes out in the moment.

You could call them sketches, and occasionally ideas come out of them that show up in more formal paintings. But I don’t do them with that purpose in mind.

I do them to do them.

When I finish a batch, I tape them together into one giant painting, hang it up and look at it.

Since I have no particular direction in mind when I start, and each section is painted independently, it amazes me how frequently elements jump the edge of the page and combine in completely unplanned ways, creating new compositions I wouldn’t have thought of intentionally.

These usually end up being my favorite parts.

Did I create them or did they create themselves?

An unanswerable question.

One thing I know for certain…if I had never picked up a brush, they wouldn’t exist at all.