This painting feels like the question that quietly opened the door to this entire collection. At 48 x 72 inches, it is the largest piece in IN THE BEGINNING so far, and in many ways, I found myself working toward it through the paintings that came before.
There are suggestions of botanical shapes here—the kinds of forms I notice in my garden and on walks through the forest around my home. I wasn’t trying to reproduce any particular plant or leaf. Instead, I was thinking about the way we instinctively make sense of the world through simple shapes and marks.
The title is both a question and a reflection of my own experience. How do I begin a painting? Sometimes I know exactly where I want to go, and sometimes I begin with almost nothing more than a mark. This collection reminds me that beginnings don’t always announce themselves. Sometimes, we only recognize where we were going after we’ve already arrived.
