“Painting the Feeling”
“I go by feeling and don’t seek perfect form,” wrote the Japanese poet Ishikawa Jozan (1583-1672).[1] And I go by feeling and not form when I paint – and in every act of creativity.
What feeling? At times – when I am not deluding myself – that this, whatever it may appear to be, is an instance of God. Yes, everything is an instance of God, for there is no not-God. This I know in my mind, and at times in my heart.
I paint not the knowledge, but the feeling – the Feeling.
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[1] Trans. Jonathan Chaves in J. Thomas Rimer, et al. Shisendo, Hall of the Poetry Immortals. Weatherhill, 1991, p. 47.
