Let the Art Speak First

An invitation to feel, not figure out.

Not everything needs an explanation.Not every brushstroke needs a backstory.

In my opinion, some paintings just are. They show up, take shape, and find their own way of saying something—without me needing to narrate it for anyone.

I’ve always believed art is less about what I meant, and more about what you feel when you’re standing in front of it. That click of recognition, the way a certain color pulls something loose in your chest, or how the light hits the paint just right—that’s the story. Right there.

Oil paint is how I tell the stories I can’t quite say out loud. As a writer, I use words to build people and places. But as a painter? I let go of the script. I follow the feeling. I let the texture do the talking. Some days, the brush moves bold and fast. Other times, it’s slow and deliberate. I don’t always know what I’m painting until it’s staring back at me.

I don’t start with a plan. I don’t sketch out meaning or map the emotion. Sometimes that sketch is very rough but it’s like a quick note (not something I’d post on social media). Cringe!

I just show up, paint in hand, and see what happens. And honestly, that’s where the magic lives—in the looseness, the unknown, the honest mess of making something.

We all bring our own weight and wonder to a piece of art. What looks like heartbreak to one person might feel like healing to someone else. That’s the part I love most. The open-endedness. The freedom to feel whatever you feel without needing to be “right.”

Lately, I’ve noticed how often we expect artists to explain every little thing—what inspired the piece, what the colors mean, what they were thinking in the moment. And sometimes, I’ll share those things. But most of the time, I’d rather not. Because when I tell you what you’re supposed to see, it robs you of what you actually feel.

Art isn’t just about me. It’s about you, too. What stirs in you when you look at it. What rises up without warning. That’s the conversation. That’s the whole point.

Oil painting lets me speak in layers—crimson over umber, light scraped across shadow. Sometimes it’s the subtle shift in value that makes a figure come forward or fall away. Other times, it’s the tension between warm and cool that carries the emotion. I think in color as much as feeling—how one hue can calm, another can agitate. It whispers and hums and sometimes hollers. And if you listen closely enough, you’ll hear something that belongs to you in there. Not just me.

So next time you find yourself standing in front of a painting—mine or anyone’s—don’t rush to figure it out. Don’t worry about what it’s supposed to mean.

Just feel it.

Let it speak first.