"When you feel beauty, you will know it as truth." Rabindranath Tagore

It seemed the first blog post should start from the beginnings, the foundation for me and any effort at creating art in the first place. Most of what I have created in a variety of art forms has been an attempt to make even the smallest gesture towards a full realization of this quote by the powerhouse Bengali poet. I have much to learn, yet it is my highest hope for anything I do, as well as how strive to I live my life.

For me, this means that beauty is something that you FEEL in your heart, and the heart doesn't lie. Beauty and truth don't emanate from the head and thinking space. That's too easily wrapped up and bound by the ego! Aaah, that ego can sure get you in a mess of trouble. But your heart always knows the truth.

A frequent subject matter for my work has often been birch trees. They have been thankfully almost everywhere I have lived in four states and two continents. I have felt their beauty even before I had words as a child. When I see some of the birch tree paintings I have made, for example, they ring like a clear bell in my soul and I can feel how they are a truth to me. They are my truth, and that feels beautiful to me.