Finding Meaning in the Mess

The mess on my studio floor—dropped tape, paint skins, dusty footprints—isn’t waste; it’s a map. It shows where intensity gathered and where doubt lingered. I’ve learned to read that residue. If one corner is pristine, maybe the painting never pulled me there; if the palette is clogged, perhaps I’m overmixing. Meaning in abstraction doesn’t arrive as a caption; it emerges from accumulation, from marks that hold time. I try to leave some of that time visible: underlayers, scuffs, ghosts of edits. Viewers sense the life of a painting even if they can’t name it. The mess reminds me that order is something we discover, not impose. Out of the scatter comes a structure that feels earned.