When I paint, I open the door to a parallel universe built from my own memories, fantasies, and insecurities, and populated by figures that simultaneously reflect this world and exist apart from it. The strangeness of allowing personal narratives to interact freely with the primordial effects of shape and color can feel a bit like trying to improvise a song in iambic pentameter, at 180 beats per minute, while free falling. The formal demands of the activity alone leave little room for hesitation, and melodrama is often an enticing life raft (or parachute, to stick with the metaphor). I can’t say exactly what happens in these moments of pure flow, but when the rhymes come naturally and the beat feels right, I find myself not worrying about the ground.