At first glance, flowers, antique letters, stacks of books, and weathered frames may seem unrelated to abstract painting. For me, they are just as much a part of the work as paint itself.
While they may not appear in the paintings themselves, they shape the way I see.
Before there is paint, there is noticing.
A faded stack of books.
The curve of a porcelain cup.
The patina and gilded edges of an antique frame.
A shaft of afternoon light moving across a table.
Random branches gathered from around the yard.
These moments may seem unrelated to painting, yet they are often where a painting begins.
I’ve realized over the years that I am endlessly drawn to beauty—not perfection, but beauty. The kind that makes you pause. The kind that feels layered, collected, and lived with.
Sometimes that pursuit takes the form of arranging flowers. Sometimes it looks like styling a table. Sometimes it means spending an hour turning the pages of an art book. And sometimes it becomes a painting.
The painting is simply one expression of the same instinct.
As an artist, I don’t separate creativity from daily life. The way I arrange objects on a table is not so different from the way I arrange shapes on a canvas. The way I respond to texture, light, age, color, and atmosphere is present in both.
In many ways, my paintings are not created in the studio alone. They are built from hundreds of quiet moments that happen long before the first brushstroke.
Perhaps that is why I continue to share these glimpses into my world.
They are not distractions from the work.
They are part of the work.
They are the things that nourish it.
The things that shape it.
The things that remind me, again and again, that beauty is worth noticing.
Warmly,
Amanda
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