Why paint? Why take something that’s essentially a private conversation between the artist and her innermost thoughts, and with other painters and put it before the public, who may or more likely won’t be interested in the thoughts and feelings of an unknown artist?

One’s training and experience matter little when the time comes to begin painting and as the artist, you realize that nobody cares, and you begin to distrust yourself. But then, doubt and confusion can be great motivators, contributing to new thoughts and directions paving the way for taking the risks necessary for making good art.

For about 20 years, I shared a studio with my father, a painter and teacher, in the old bank building in Pontiac, Michigan.

The studio was in an old office on the eighth floor overlooking the city; one room was on the northwest corner of the building, filled with light that changed throughout the course of the day. Another room was used mostly for storing my dad’s oeuvre of paintings and drawings, produced during a lifetime’s work as a Detroit painter. The other two rooms were used for my studio where I painted and made works on paper.

Pontiac is one of many rust belt cities in the Midwest, once supported by car and truck manufacturers; recently, it has struggled.

In the light-filled environment of my studio, I found myself answering my need to paint and draw, to make things with my hands, to paint on large canvases attached to the wall. Painting is a physical activity; it incorporates not just seeing and feeling one’s way through a piece, but also understanding what the work is telling you. Painting requires developing the skill of listening; in order to hear what’s being said, the artist needs to quickly learn to quiet the internal critic. The inner critic is the one who insists that the direction you’re heading in is the wrong direction.

So, as I said, why paint? Why enter into a private dialogue with yourself and other artists, a dialogue that forces the artist to confront his or her own doubts and uncertainties? And, while engaging in this process how can you not be a little uncomfortable about the outcome?

As someone who grew up in Detroit in a family of artists and teachers, I wasn’t dissuaded by parents who questioned what I was doing and doubted my future prospects. Quite the contrary, I was encouraged by teachers, by my aunts, also artists, painters, and poets, who themselves were engaged in creative undertakings. Both of my parents had been to art school and weren’t surprised, I think, when I told them after a year of college, that that’s where I wanted to go, as well.