When I start a group of paintings I’m not sure exactly where I’ll be going. They are like places on a journey and my mission is to discover what is there. I begin with color – grabbing what jumps out at me from my paint tubes and jars and pulling out some favorite brushes….choosing a size of canvas and I’m off.

Once I have begun, colors speak to me and to each other, shapes form and I see something which wants to be expressed. This combination of things has to feel just right. It is a form of meditation for me. It sometimes takes quite a while to really get attuned to that special place. Paintings tend to go through many iterations before they settle and then often require a lot of hours working out the techniques needed. Once a group of pieces are in process they start to relate and lead on to another.

 Traveling this spring and summer, the patterns and colors in various landscapes - especially types of deserts - has definitely influenced many of these works. Then I come around to certain themes again and again. A sense of place, of home and refuge. I paint trees. I see an abundance of beauty. I meditate on the tree of life and our connection to the earth and sky.

Anne Martin McCool