In the 1400s, Konrad Witz painted Christ and his disciples in the Galilee, their wiggly legs refracted under the water and upper torsos reflected on the surface. This morning, my dog went wading in the creek and created this same visual situation but with hairier legs. An observant and curious Witz had presented details of the world he saw that still hold true for me six centuries later.

Painting is an excuse for me to closely observe the world and how it works as a unit, to continually learn to better depict what I see, and to balance abstract, formal elements on my canvas. I am as fascinated by the movement of the waterbug’s shadow at the bottom of the creek bed as I am by the perfect roundness of an eye’s irises. I hope to extend this spiritual, wonder inspired, or perhaps just scientifically curious tradition of representational painters who paint details of their surroundings through the ages as an indication of a hidden illimitable power, images which hint at a superior spirit in the universe.