Sometimes I choose the fingers over the brushes, resulting in blistered tips and splinters. In the act, however, the burning of soul and vision surpasses the burning of flesh on wood. The artist must bleed, must be splattered, become broken, walk through the thickets and fall. The artist wants to know, to know words, faces, ideas. The artist wants to love, wants to believe, wants to create every second but also knows a time of observing is a fruitful thing, a time of listening and lounging, sipping and tasting in the subtle surprises, sitting in spaces where holiness is smelled, where life leaks through the roof and the thunder tumbles to the window panes, the candles lit, darkness and pajamas, yawns and praise.