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Pat Matthews' Artist's Statement
What I like most about what I do is that I learn something new every day and the sum is always greater than the parts. It's hard to describe.
The best I'm able to do by way of describing the experience is to say that the energy that flows out of me when I paint seems to come from difference sources other than my body. Each of these outside sources - the weather, the smell of the forest, the sounds of water and the wildlife, the wind, the temperature, the stillness, the solitude – the color and texture of the oil paint..seems to create its own energy. And the force of these combined energies is greater than the parts.
Indeed sometimes, particularly when I'm painting outdoors, I'll look at my hands (and I often paint with both hands) and wonder how they know to do what they're doing!
I'll be the first to admit that the experience can be just a little bit spiritual. For a fact, if I get in a groove the day passes and only later will I realize that I had been working in something that can only be described as another dimension and the work that has appeared on my canvas is the work of a more accomplished soul who has been using me to communicate a vision I have until then only partially seen. I am learning how to paint every day.
Arkansas Times
North Little Rock Times
Southwest Art Magazine
Letter from First Lady Janet Huckabee, wife of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee