Good morning,
Awake and creative.
As we dive into week 21,
It's again,
A short quote,
A quick quote to turn into a mantra to hold in your heart all week long.
But quick doesn't mean simple.
Let's dig into the profundity this week,
Week 21.
Shapes Do you find them in your work?
They've become a delight to me over the course of the last year.
They proceed,
2026 having started back in,
Gosh,
November of 2024.
Deliberately that is,
Shapes.
I can see,
Of course,
Looking in the rear view mirror that shapes have always been there.
The colors in my abstract paintings always form something that draws the eye to the shape of it.
But these shapes,
The delight I'm finding myself in now in the studio over the course of the past year,
And even more specifically these 21 weeks of 2026 we are tripping into.
These shapes are delightful,
Deliberate,
And all the while,
Fascinating.
My work has been radicalized this year in volume,
Scope,
Direction,
And shape as well.
I don't know yet,
Because there's not enough road in that rear view,
I don't know yet what this means exactly.
And yes,
I always look for meaning in what I'm creating,
Because there's always meaning in what we're creating.
Purpose,
Story,
Prophecy.
So I don't know yet what all these shapes mean as they come into being.
The forms I'm choosing and the shapes I'm cutting and the way my brush comes in to all of a sudden have painted this circle,
This amorphous,
I don't know yet.
But what they are so far is like I said,
Delightful.
So I ask myself,
What if that is enough?
As I mentioned last week,
That closing of the eyes phrase plays out again here.
Sometimes I need to close my eyes to see.
What I mean by this is the eyes of my thoughts,
That think I have to make sense of what I'm doing in order to keep doing it.
Define what my hand is creating in order to let it exist.
Trust the process.
But I've begun to realize that it's quite the opposite.
When I can close my eyes to those thoughts,
That discretionary processing my brain does,
None of that meaning matters.
It's the matter that is the meaning.
Challenge yourself too this week,
Artist,
Creator.
You don't have to make sense.
Creation can just be.
Sometimes this is a process that has to happen first in order for the sense.
To take shape.
This is prophecy.
This is speaking into the future.
This is guiding,
Leading,
Directing,
Hoping.
This is creating.
So this week's quote comes to us from a Sufi poet.
One less known in the Western world than,
Say,
Hafiz.
But one very well known in the Persian world.
I have made the world through a paradise of words.
Ferdowsi here says his poetry is the work of creating paradise.
Through his own hand,
He creates that paradise I spoke of last week himself.
I change it just a little bit to apply to my own hand,
My own creative practice.
And rewrite it on my studio wall to read.
I have made the world through a paradise of color.
And just because.
I'm speaking of shape here and the changes my world is going through in the studio.
I have made the world through a paradise of shapes.
Keep the delight going this week.
Open your eyes to the paradise that already exists in everything you create.
Awaken creative today.
