In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about a friend of hers who likes to figure skate. She says:

Skating is the best way for her to unfold a certain beauty and transcendence within her life that she cannot seem to access in any other manner. And she would like to spend as much time as possible in such a state of transcendence while she is still here on earth."

I just came across the quote and it resonates so strongly with me. Because this is how it feels to me to make art. It has always been that way, from my earliest scribblings as a child to just yesterday, when I turned a painting upside down and felt that familiar rush of excitement as I glimpsed the potential for something unintended and utterly surprising.Art is my refuge and my biggest source of joy. I would do it even if no-one ever bought anything. As Elizabeth Gilbert says, it unfolds a transcendence that I cannot access in any other way.