Message to Marc

Hey Marc,
      I've been thinking about our talk on on Thursday and I think i've figured out some really valuable things.  Remember I was about to start that painting on Thursday evening? Well, I started and finished it in about 3 hours.  I feel like it is a direct response to our talk and I feel a lot of relief. I didn't have any resource images or anything; it was completely intuitive paintinting. I figured out why I paint-  it is my first instinct.  Before I knew how to speak or write when I was a kid, I knew color and how communicate with it. It is the only way I can truly express or articulate exactly what I want to without any trouble at all. The brush is just a portal for it all to come out.  The brush litterally feels like an extra long extention of my heart and my brain.  And people reinforce that all the time when they talk to me about my paintings.  I don't think I 've ever come across someone who hasn't gotten the point I wanted them to in my paintings, at least in the past 2 years or so (when my paintings actually started to mean something).  I've done some sculpture and photo, but I never felt that same connection that I feel with painting.  To paint is a natural reaction that has been going on since I was born.
     I was super inspired by the Peter Saul lecture too.  It was very encouraging to hear a successful famous artist say that he just relaxes and paints, letting his imagination take over.  Now, I don't necessarilly use my imagination the same way as he does, but I feel like I do the same thing.  I don't over think my work- I just relax and do it, which is how I got my painting out on Thursday.  I'm really excited for you to see it!  When I do start to over-think, I start to feel a shallow connection to it, like I'm just painting to paint and not to communicate.
     I also realized something about my subject matter.  This doesn't really apply to a lot of the paintings that I have been making, but I've been thinking about this for easily 10 years.  I'm seeing it come through in my thesis and now with this new painting.  I'm interested in different settings and arrangements of subjects that have been painted for hundreds of years.  For example,  my thesis painting is a combination setting of "the Transfiguration" and "the Last Judgement".  This new painting is a "Decent from the Cross".  I've also had this idea of a "Birth of Venus" brewing in my head for a few months, but I'm not ready to do it yet.  This is something that I do in music too.  All of the pieces that I sing are always settings of particular texts that have been used by  different composers from many different centuries.  For example,  there are tons of other musical settings of the same exact text from my thesis in multiple languages.  I've always been intersted in throwing my own settings into the mix (which is one thing I definitely accomplished with my thesis, esspecially musically). I'd like to do a "Man of Sorrows" in the near future. 
Anyway, what do you think of all this?  I wanted to send you this on thursday night when I go home, but I got swamped with life and didn't have time to sit and write until right now.  I also wanted to let you know that my wheels are turning a mile a minute and I'm feelin' groovy...  If you want to check out the painting before I get a chance to talk to you, it's in my studio.
Thanks for all of you wonderful help and guidance,
Diana
ps- I'm taking my mom so see you show on Monday!