“Atlanta Passion Seated” contemporary figurative art. acrylic on canvas. 24 in x 24 in.

“Atlanta Passion Seated” contemporary figurative art

Here are some words I wrote the morning after the first time I painted “Atlanta Passion“:

The Angel Moroni shows me the mantle of the prophet and instructs me to continue my work.

We all unlearn many things from our childhood, but I think we unlearn them at an intellectual level and not at an emotional level.  I think the things lodged with us at this deeper level persist for life.  At the core, I have never been able to shake the idea that the Lord was preparing me to write an important book, and that is why everything happened the way it did.  The more rational part of my mind has scoffed at this idea, even laughed and ridiculed, but it has never been able to change things, not at the very core.

Each night I leave my new wife snuggled in bed and go down into the basement to paint.  I paint all night long.  I have no sense of time.  It is dark and the house is quiet.  I only know to go to bed when I hear the birds singing outside at sunrise.  These silent nights are a religious experience, pure and simple, and I do not mean by analogy, etc.  On several occasions I have suddenly realized that I was weeping because I was literally overwhelmed by what I was painting.  Of course, this discovery made me laugh like a mad scientist in his laboratory. “It is alive Igor!  By God Almighty, it is alive!”

This morning at 5 am I drove a nail into the wall to hang this painting.  Needless to say, my wife is a patient woman.