Tapestry of Faith: Spirit in Practice: An Adult Program for Developing A Regular Practice of the Spirit

A Painter's Creative Process

A contemporary painter named Debora Jones-Buck has what many consider an unusual approach to her work. She prepares a canvas and then paints a picture on it. Then, when the paint has dried, she paints an entirely different image on top of it. And then another, and another. Eventually she puts the canvas aside, sometimes with five or six paintings on top of one another. Then she prepares a new canvas and starts all over again.

She does not keep a record of the various images she paints and then covers up—she takes no photographs, keeps no sketches. She says she just has so many images in her head that she has to get them out, even if no one ever sees them. Having gotten the image out and onto a canvas, she no longer needs it and is free to paint another picture on top of it.