I started out trying to paint redwood trees.
It didn’t go the way I wanted.
The paint didn’t behave, the shapes wouldn’t settle into anything recognizable, and I could feel that familiar frustration creeping in. The kind that comes from trying to force something into existence that just isn’t ready to be seen that way.
So I stopped.
I put on music. I picked up another canvas. And instead of trying to make something, I just… painted.
No plan. No vision. No expectation.
Just movement, color, and response.
When I finished, I wasn’t entirely sure what I had made, but I knew I liked it. It felt quieter than the redwoods. Softer. Like something that didn’t need to explain itself.
When I looked at it, I saw a secret dwelling.
A door within a door.
Something hidden, but not locked. Something you might only notice if you slowed down long enough.
Then my son looked at it.
He saw an Easter Bunny.
And once he pointed it out, I couldn’t not see it. The shapes shifted. What had felt like a doorway became something playful, alive, almost character-like. It made me smile the way children can step into abstraction and immediately find a story waiting there.
Then my sister looked at it.
She saw something entirely different.
A woman curled into herself, holding her knees. Not sad, not exactly, but withdrawn. Not wanting to engage, or maybe simply resting somewhere inward. And then, she said, she saw a hand with dark fingers reaching down from above, pulling her back into the world.
That one stayed with me.
Because once again, the painting changed. The soft central form became a body. The darker marks around it became something external. Something interrupting. Something insisting.
Three people. Three interpretations.
A hidden doorway.
A rabbit.
A woman being pulled back to reality.
None of them cancel each other out.
If anything, they deepen the piece. They layer meaning onto something that began without any fixed meaning at all.
What I painted wasn’t a subject, it was a state.
Something inward. Something quiet. Something partially hidden.
And depending on who looks at it, that state becomes a place, a creature, or a moment of feeling.
I think that’s what happens when I stop trying to control the outcome.
When I let go of the need to “make something recognizable,” something else takes over, something more honest, maybe. Something that leaves space for interpretation, for projection, for other people to step in and find themselves.
This piece feels like a collaboration in a way I didn’t expect.
Not just between me and the canvas, but between me and the people who experience it after.
It’s still a work in progress.
But I need to sit with it, as is, a little longer. It keeps unfolding, depending on who is looking, and what they bring with them.
And maybe that’s the part I want to hold onto:
Not knowing exactly what something is.
Letting it be many things at once.
Letting it remain open.
A door within a door.
Still quietly waiting to be entered.
I’m curious, what do you see?