I get lost in people’s eyes. They are like bridges: painting them crosses all boundaries, pulling me into a stranger’s heart and from there into my own. They show me how precious we are.

For a time I step out of myself into a world more alive than anything I could have imagined. My hand, my arm, my torso shout colors onto the paper, slap the brush, mush it, liquefy the edge with water so paint bleeds into softness and cries…or laughs. Or dreams. Between the hope and the hardship, the love and the fears, that’s where I unearth the truest treasures. Like an archeologist, I uncover precious lost bits of myself as I paint, then carefully dust them off to see, learn from, and share with others. Perhaps they’ll see something, too.

It isn’t easy. Nothing important is. Sometimes painting is like pulling out fingernails; sometimes it’s like making love. Always, it’s exactly like being completely alive.

~Kate Aubrey