I paint under the name Summoning Saraswati.  For me, painting is a form of prayer.  It is an act of offering up to life the many nuances of emotion and impressions that cannot be expressed  through words.  It is an invitation of surrender to the creative impulse, allowing it to flow through and translate what is felt and unseen into visible form and colour.

Saraswati is the Vedic goddess of knowledge who presides over knowledge of oneself as absolute (pure existence-awareness) and the knowledge of all disciplines and art forms.  She is the flowing, all pervasive one who is pure grace; the wondrous, mysterious, creative power manifest as all names, forms and functions.

To attempt to box the feminine into a form that is worthy of praise only when it reflects what is comfortable or familiar is to cut oneself off from the gifts of the feminine force as an agent of change and destruction. This is the very ardent love that allows for life itself to flourish continually, blossoming anew and bringing with it unparalleled beauty, joy and abundance.

When I paint, it is an honoring of the deep and passionate vulnerability that is inherent in living life fully alive through both pain and pleasure.