This piece comes from a different kind of interruption.

Two months ago, I had another stroke. It didn’t take everything, but it changed the rhythm. I stepped out of the studio for a month—not as collapse, but as instruction. Rest when it was time to rest. Work when it was time to work. No pushing. No proving.

The last four pieces in this series come from that shift.

Three years ago, after my earlier strokes, color went dull. The world flattened and I painted through it anyway, working against resistance, building images through effort and persistence. That work mattered, but it came from strain.

This time was different.

When I returned, color was clearer and more vibrant—not heightened, not manic, just available. The thinking changed too. The work moved when it was ready and stopped when it was finished. I didn’t wrestle these paintings into place. I followed them. The clarity here isn’t about recovery; it’s about alignment.

This final piece feels resolved because nothing is being forced. The form holds. The color stays. The image knows when to stop.

Sometimes survival doesn’t arrive as struggle.
Sometimes it arrives as flow.

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