Shy Paintings

My recent exhibition at the John Martin Gallery  The Wolf of Eyelash Mountain  has now come down and I find myself getting back into a studio routine. Starting back after a show is as much about new beginnings as it is about tuning back into that flow that has its own, uninterrupted momentum. I have been working on some of the paintings here for months. Leading up to the last show I was hoping, sometimes willing them to be ready but they just weren't so they got left behind. 

Sometimes I think paintings summon themselves while they are turned to face a wall and I'm not looking at them for a period of time. I took these ones out today and hung them up, some upside down just to see how they look that way and to get to know them again. I don’t know why it still surprises me but it does - some of the magic of painting happens while I am not looking.