There is something profound about the act of journeying. Whether across landscapes or within the quiet space of a studio, each step, each brushstroke, carries us deeper into the process. Movement and stillness. Effort and surrender. This rhythm shapes both the pilgrim’s path and the artist’s practice.
To walk a pilgrimage is to bear the weight of the journey. I would imagine that the body aches, the feet blister, the pack presses against the spine.
There is a stripping away of comfort, a confrontation with endurance. The mind, restless at first, begins to quiet.
There is only the next step, the next breath, the ground beneath your feet.
In this simplicity, something must shift.
The landscape, once just a backdrop, becomes a presence.
The rhythm of walking dissolves thought, making space for something deeper. The trees whisper, the wind carves through the valley, the sky stretches without end.
Alone with these elements, the self softens.
What once felt urgent fades. I get this all of the time when I'm outside.
Nature to me is Divine.
Painting carries its own weight. The brush in the hand, the strain in the shoulders, the long hours spent in dialogue with the surface.
The materials resist, the body responds.
To paint is not just to see, but to move, to inhabit the work fully. The repeated actions, mixing, layering, scraping back, are like the footsteps, marking time, grounding the mind.
And just as nature stills the pilgrim, so too does painting.
When I'm fully immersed, the noise of the world recedes.
There is only the hand, the brush, the unfolding surface.
The ego dissolves, leaving only the work, the process, the breath between moments.
Both the pilgrim and the painter come to understand that endurance is not about force, but about surrender.
I imagine that the landscape shapes the journey for us both. Allowing the forces of nature to be part of the undertaking.
And so I paint.
Not to arrive, not to complete, but to become part of something larger than myself.