Painting has come to play a big part in my life. I’ve had a couple of different conversations with some folks over the past few weeks where I have tried to explain what painting has meant to me, tried to explain the void that it filled for me and the sense of purpose it brought to my life. I talked about never feeling any sense of destiny or anything like that in becoming a painter. It just seemed to work for me in the ways I needed it to work. These conversations brought to mind the blog entry below that I wrote back in early 2009 called The Need to Paint that I thought I’d share today:
I wrote a few days ago about how I am often mystified by the meanings of my paintings and how this makes me glad that I still have the need to paint.
The need to paint?
I thought about that after I hit the button to publish that post. I have often heard artists say they had to paint, as though it were some sort of exotic medical quandary.
Paint or die.
It always kind of bothered me when I heard this, as though these people were saying they had some sort of predestined calling. Like they were prophets or shamans that without their visionary paintings the world would spin out of control. I don’t think I ever felt afflicted with this and it always sounded just a little pompous to me.
So when I wrote that I had the need to paint it made me twitch a bit. Maybe I’m the pompous ass here. That certainly is in the realm of possibility.
But I find myself kind of standing behind what I said– I do need to paint.
It’s not some call to destiny. It’s not to transmit some psychic message to the world. It’s more a case of me needing have a voice or form of expression that best suits my mind and abilities. Painting just happens to fill that need. If I could yodel–and thankfully for us all I cannot– I might be saying that I have the need to yodel.
But I need to paint.
I need to paint to try to express things I certainly can’t put in words, things that awe and mystify me. I need to paint to have a means to a voice to make the universe aware that I exist.
I need to paint just to remind myself that I am alive and still have the ability to feel the excitement and joy from something that I have created. I need to paint to feel the surprise of exceeding what I felt was within me, to go into that realm of personal mystery within and emerge with something new. I need to paint because it has given me the closest thing I know to answers to the questions I have.
I need to paint because it is one of the few things that I’ve done fairly well in my life.
Would I die?
Nah…
I’d adapt and find something new but it would be hard to find something that would suit me as well. So I guess I do need to paint after all. Call me a pompous ass. I don’t give a damn- I’ve got work to do.
Redtree Times 
I have a need to paint a lot of the time but it’s not because of some manifest destiny. It’s because painting (and working with my hands making things generally) puts me into this quiet state of mind which I love. In a way it’s kind of similar to fishing for me – a way to get away from it all and just be myself. I just like making things. 🙂
Good reasons, all.
You paint because you can’t not paint. I perfectly understand. I write because I can’t not write.
Painting to me is a way of keeping my father alive. He passed away beginning of 2015 and it wasn’t until after that did I find out that he painted when I found some of his works. I started painting and it relaxes me so much, just thinking about him (sat here typing this crying thinking of him). See one of his works on my site and my version of his painting.
Maintaining that connection to your father is such a wonderful reason to paint, especially not knowing that he had painted until he had passed. It must be fascinating to think about what your dad was feeling when was painting his pictures. Thanks for sharing that.
Can you have a look at my paintings and give me some advice on improving pls.