The Pursuit Of A Dream...

Not long ago, in a time very close to ours, an idyllic world existed... This is often how we chose to perceive something that we find fascinating. I am a dissolvent child when it comes to the imagination, caught between a world of reality and a world of make-believe where there are no boundries, in fact, no end of time... Standing firmly with my feet in both of these worlds, I have come to appreciate the good things these worlds can offer.

Reality is the life I live as a concrete being, in the make-believe world; my soul and mind live another life, free from the intimidations of imminent death. Yes, in some way, all true artists are fatalists, because we learn, as students of art, to count the days we have left of our lives to be creative. Whenever we start to go down that lonely road where art takes us, we often get the feeling that we started too late.

I did at one point in my life sit down and make a big chart of how many paintings I needed to have painted, in order to call myself a "true" artist. I stopped counting around 1.500. At that point I was 24 years old. Then reality caught up with me and I realized I needed to get a better grip of life...

In a non-religious epiphany, I was struck by the idea that I should examine the lives of the old and contemporary masters and learn from how the lived their lives in order to not make to many mistakes myself. This was a perilous journey, since my first love was Claude Monet, and then, like a loveinjection - Salvador Dalì and finally Delacroix.

As an artist, you are expected to go your own way, this is not an easy thing since you need to learn how to live in two worlds. Dalì certainly learned how to do that, and so did Delacroix. Monet wanted to cling unto to world with such ferocious credibility using hos own coloursystem, that he almost extinguished the very fabric of life, by placing his soul in each of his paintings.

When this dawned on me I realized that Dalì and Monet, just like me - must have had their share of confusion...

They pondered; what is art, is it worth it, why me?

I read all about these artists, and a hundred more; I imagined I was them, but none of them could tell me what I need to know. None of them except Delacroix. Reading his famous journals gave me the answers I needed, and his life and his art, his true devotion has been my inspiration ever since.