For this picture I sat at my kitchen table and focused on the overall effect of the light coming through the window. I asked myself about the infinite abstraction available to me. I asked myself not to conceptually glue things together too much.

The picture took several sessions before I realized that I had two stars of the show instead of one. One half of the picture spoke as loudly as the other half of the picture which created an uneasy tension in the composition.

So I cut the picture in half! This is the half that felt the most right.

It reminds me of daily moments in front of the kitchen sink washing the dishes, wiping countertops, cleaning vegetables, and taking care of the little things.

Mary Oliver’s poem “Mindful” comes to mind:

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?