Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.
-Lawrence Durrell
*****************
This new painting, Winding Through, is making its own journey, heading out to the Just Looking Gallery in San Luis Obispo, CA along with a group of other new work. The idea of journeying, inwardly and outwardly, is very much the theme of this 36″ by 24″ canvas and the above quote from Lawrence Durrell fits well with this theme.
We can set a course for a destination and make all sorts of plans toward arriving at that endpoint. But plans seldom account for the obstacles encountered along the way and the way in which we react to and are changed by them. These reactions and changes mold us, create a new version of ourselves. And despite our best intentions to remain true to the course we set earlier, we may find our new selves on a completely different path headed to a very different endpoint, sometimes much better or worse than that originally intended.
But occasionally, we wind our way through the obstacles and changes and find ourselves at a place where we had hoped to be right from the start. We are much different than we began as a result of the journey and how we see that endpoint may be slightly different than we first imagined. In fact, it may only seem like our original endpoint because as we adapted to the bumps of the road our endpoint adjusted as well, moving to coincide with the lessons we were learning along the way.
We become what we are to become.
This is only a quick, early morning reading of what I see here. Off hand, I can think of hundreds, maybe thousands, of exceptions and additions to the paragraphs above. I may not even agree with it by the end of the day.
But that, too, is part of the journey…
Redtree Times 
In September, I was invited to be interviewed for an online arts site. I agreed, and thought in the middle of answering their questions how glad I was I could write my responses, instead of doing it live, as you have.
In any event, in the bio that needed to be attached, I included this phrase: “a series of mostly serendipitous events and inexplicable impulses…” That pretty much sums it my life, and I think catches Durrell’s meaning. There’s value in having goals for our lives (“Where do you want to be in five years? Ten? Fifteen?) but there’s real value in being open to unexpected opportunities, and the assortment of winding paths we haven’t yet glmpsed.