My journey into the world of painting began in college while looking for an elective to fill my schedule. My roommate encouraged me to take the same painting class in which she was enrolled. As luck would have it the class fit my schedule perfectly. I have always loved to do creative things so why not paint. At that time my college career looked like a crazy quilt composed of every art and design class I could get into instead of a well paved road toward a productive future. I took drawing, textiles, pottery, industrial design, interior design, watercolor, silk screening, sculpture, and more. It was haphazard. However, I was having a fabulous time and never settled on any particular focus of study.

The instructor of the acrylic painting class was perhaps a bit unconventional. He encouraged us to get to know the medium, to feel the paint without any specific goals. Each student was to have a masonite board with large sheets of water resistant paper taped in the corners that could be easily removed so we didn’t get bogged down or attached to any particular work. We squirted out blobs of liquid color and moved them over the surface using brushes, sticks, sponges, and our hands. This free style approach totally suited my personality and I got into the fluidity of all that vibrant color. Like a kid with a set of finger-paints I pursued the exploration with abandon. 

When it came time for the first critique we all sat in a large circle. Each student held their board displaying their completed painting for all to see. The instructor walked around the inside of the circle deep in thought. You could truly have heard a pin drop. He stood in the middle of the circle for a moment then walked over to me and took the board from my hands. He held my painting up and walked around the circle showing all the other students my piece. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I was a little nervous. I thought maybe I was going to get kicked out of class when he stopped in the center and said, “Now this is a painting!” I truly didn’t know what to make of that but I believe my roommate, who was a serious fine arts major had some thoughts. 

Painting entered my life in another rather unconventional way years later through a series of dreams. To be completely candid, if I hadn’t lived through them I might not even believe my account. However, I assure you these were real. There were 3 dreams that I remembered in vivid detail, each waking me from a sound sleep 3 nights in a row. All three nights upon awakening the digital clock at my bedside read precisely 3:00 am in glaring red numbers. 

The first night … I was in a totally dark, cavern like place. Then from the far reaches of the cavern a grayish sort of indistinct light appeared which grew in intensity as it progressed toward me. The light began to take shape as it got closer and by the time it was directly in front of me I could see that it was a bright white, large rectangular canvas. I abruptly woke up. The clock read 3:00. I remember thinking, “That was weird,” and went back to sleep.

The following night I hadn’t given the dream a second thought when I went to sleep and had the exact dream down to every little detail. However, when the canvas stood in front of me instead of waking I saw a black snaky line slowly moving toward it’s top, branching out into other lines creating something like a tree. When the black lines reached the upper edge of the canvas, once again I abruptly awoke. The clock read 3:00. “Whoa, that was strange.” I went back to sleep but the memory of the two unusual dreams dropped into my thoughts from time to time throughout the day. 

On the third night I was once again visited by the same dream, and once again it was identical to the other two until the lines reached the top of the canvas. At that point something else took place. Objects in the shape of fans in various colors began to appear as if they were leaves sprouting from the ‘branches’ of the tree. Then the leaves became 3 dimensional, moving out in puffy mounds speaking one word so loudly it was as if someone was shouting in my ear. “Paint!” I woke up startled and trembling. The clock read 3:00.

I still get chills when I think about those 3 extraordinary nights and the impact of those dreams. What if I hadn’t followed that mysterious directive to paint. I think every choice I have made whether large or small is responsible for the life I am living at this very moment. I also think it’s true that choosing one path to follow over the countless others that could be taken can be very challenging. 

Now that I am in the latter part of my life I can see a pattern of decisions that at the time might have seemed like the disorderly journey I made through college. I also see that I chose to follow the scent of something larger than myself, a voice nudging me along. Can I define it? No. No more than I can move the stars, but I have learned to trust that voice.

After the three nights of those remarkable dreams I bought paints and rekindled the pure joy I found in my college days. I once again started out playing with paint like a child fully alive and present to the sheer pleasure of creating. At a point in time something shifted. The connection between the canvas, paint and my hands morphed into a timeless space connected to an energy outside myself. I began to experience something like being a conduit to faithfully write a story with paint.