Still In Play

Acrylic on wood panel.

27x40"

Recently, I met a woman in her early seventies who had a certain vibrancy about her. It was most apparent when she smiled. Her whole face lit up. For a moment, I could see her inner child shining through — that unguarded, joyful part of us that exists beneath all the layers of experience, expectation and responsibility we accumulate as we grow older.

It was infectious.

And it got me thinking about how easily we forget to play.

As we age, life seems to get heavy. We are more aware of the state of the world, the passage of time and the things we can no longer control. There is no shortage of reasons to be serious, especially these days!

When did play become something we had to earn? Something reserved for weekends, holidays or the rare moment when everything else was taken care of?

My painting "Still In Play", asks us are we still playing?

My ongoing pinball machine series explores life as a game, a metaphor that connects with the questions at the heart of my PARADOX series.

If life is a game, how much of it is actually within our control? We don't choose the circumstances into which we're born or every obstacle that comes flying our way. Sometimes the ball takes a ridiculous bounce. Sometimes we lose a turn. Sometimes the rules seem to change halfway through the game.

But perhaps we have more freedom than we think in deciding how we play.

Let the magic in.

My art gives me a way to explore the contradictions, absurdities and uncomfortable questions of being human. The PARADOX series is, in many ways, my attempt to make sense of a world that often doesn't make sense at all.

But perhaps there is a paradox here, too.

That woman's smile reminded me that joy doesn't always arrive through some grand revelation. Sometimes it appears in the face of another person, unexpectedly, and for a moment we see beyond all the things that divide us or weigh us down.

We see a person simply being alive.