Every artist struggles with the void, and it is the void that often brings them to their art, the void that calls to them, the void that makes the need to create above all else. It is their connection to the world and to themselves. The past 3 days I have been struggling with the "void", as it sometimes taps me on the shoulder when I am caught in the spaces between the actions. Searching in my mind's sea, I am at times physically paralyzed, mute and anxious, but my mind spins with explosions of imagery. It can sometimes be exhausting. I need nothing more but a very gentle quiet space to myself, undisturbed, until the urge to physicalize comes. And it is sudden.

I have been in the midst of 3 new paintings: Windows, The One Love I Can Depend On and the 3rd remains untitled. I have been battling them a little bit, as art-making can sometimes be a battle, challenging like a relationship that’s meaningful. It can make the worst and best come out of you. Yesterday, on one of my worst days, my husband and I had a long discussion about art making and we used the very term "void" as we were examining what this means to the artist.

Later in the evening and strangely enough, when I asked him to read me some de Kooning—yes, we sometimes read bed-time stories to each other—when he opened the biography to where I had left off, a new chapter fabulously began, Chapter 19: Darkness Radiant and it began with this quotation:

"In Genesis, it is said that in the beginning was the void and God acted upon it. For an artist that is clear enough. It is so mysterious that it takes away all the doubt. One is utterly lost in space forever."

How convenient!

And then I saw Picasso's Drawings with Light this morning as I was drinking coffee and the urge came and ideas are rolling...

Picasso: Drawing With Light