For the first time in three years, March 2026 will come and go without a single new finished painting coming out of my studio.  That's not a slump.  It's something more deliberate.  I spent the month going back.

I pulled out a group of older paintings and brought them up to where I am now. Not where I was when I made them, and that distinction matters. I don't paint in my comfort zone, and I've never settled into the kind of rhythm where an artist finds something that sells and repeats it. The goal, every time I pick up a brush, is to make something stronger than what came before — better technique, more considered composition, more sophisticated color. 

What that means in practice is that even a painting I finished three months ago can look unresolved to me today. Although I always work at the top of my game, suddenly there becomes a gap between what I made and what I'm now capable of making. March was about closing some of those gaps.

What surprised me was that the reworking itself pushed my skill forward. Going back hasn't been just maintenance.  It turned out to be its own kind of training. Fixing problems I couldn't solve six months ago taught me something new about solving them.

As for when the reworking stops: it doesn't, really. As long as a painting stays in my studio, I'm going to look at it with a critical eye. That's actually why I don't varnish until a piece leaves.  Nothing here is settled until it goes to its home.

So if you've been following my work, March may look quiet from the outside. No reveal, no finished piece to show. But the paintings that still live in my studio are better for it. And so, I think, am I.