Caroline James

The Airborne + zoom	C.A.L.M. + zoom	Fish Farm + zoom	No Boat Required: Warriors + zoom
A Nice Shiny Finish + zoom	Dream Sleep Life + zoom	The Ride + zoom	Stories of Gods and Heroes + zoom
Canasta + zoom	(fully)....art, grace, hope + zoom	Cowboy (or girl) #12 + zoom	Family + zoom
Wild West (diptych) + zoom	Western Dreams - The Last Adventure + zoom	Brown Towhee - The Collector + zoom	Hammond's Flycatcher - One of These Things + zoom
Solitary Sandpiper + zoom	Spagues Pipit - Hoverlover + zoom	Stellar's Jay - Where the Ocean Meets the Shore + zoom	Surf Birds - Who's on First? + zoom
Wilson's Warbler/Yellow Crowned Warbler - Time Stood Still + zoom	Robins - Imago Dei + zoom	Titmouse - It Pours + zoom	Equinox + zoom
Mystic + zoom	Substanence + zoom	The Course + zoom	The Portal + zoom
Breathe + zoom	Home + zoom	If I were Blue and I were Yellow it Would Always Be Spring + zoom	Picking Plums: Rewards of the Passionate Life + zoom
Small Joyful + zoom	The Question of How to Navigate Freedom + zoom	Waiting for Wonderland + zoom	Warm Earth Traveller + zoom
You Are My Sunshine Because I am My Sunshine + zoom	Celestial Navigation + zoom	Companion + zoom

What is your artwork about [ underlying concepts, focus, themes, intent, etc.? What matters to you most about the work you do? What is currently the central motivation for or conceptual concern in your work?

I don't really paint with any specific intention in mind. Rather the focus of my working process is to stay in touch with the space of trust that is a broader intention of creativity in general. When I work I have the sense of dropping down into a quiet place, some other realm, where all the imagery that I will make already exists. My job is simply to get out of the way and let it express itself through me. Usually what comes through has much to do with whatever transitions or lessons or relationships are first and foremost in my experience at that time.

What informs your artwork and what are your influences? Do you feel the need to position your work within the context of art history and, if so, whats your take on that?

I've been unfashionably influenced by the cerebral/spiritual aspects of early modernism. I make no apologies for my hero worship of the so called male dominated New York painters of the 50's and 60's. Gestural abstraction, Minimalism and Colorfield work constantly astound me. Joan Mitchell and Agnes Martin tip me over at opposite poles. Pollock gave me permission but gesturally he really was a wimp. I am as turned on by the sensuality of ecstatic gobs of paint as I am by the grace of a single black line. Twombly did both with the magic of a child. I think he was a mystic. Art is like music. Its (almost) all good.

What mediums, techniques or processes are involved in your artmaking - and why these? Is there a trigger or a starting point for each piece? How does your physical/geographical environment inform the work you do? How has your work evolved over the last five years?

Its easier to list the things I don't use. Watercolors seem so ..diluted to me. I'm a bit.uuuhmm.. resistant - to wax crayons. I prefer panel to canvas, canvas to paper. Everything else is fair game including accidental bird droppings and once, my own hair, the day I got it cut in my studio and forgot to sweep up before I started dancing and singing again. My working process is very kinesthetic. Paint, sing loud, a lot of sexy dancing around. Terrible life. Just terrible. No fun at all.

What are your other passions in life and how have these influenced your work?

What matters most to me about the whole thing is the healing and enlarging aspects of creativity. In a world chalk full of beautiful things and brutal realities its important to have a higher purpose. The exigencies of the creative process have over time changed me in ways I could never have anticipated. Making paintings has given me wisdom and compassion and an understanding of our connectedness to each other that I would not otherwise have achieved. I go to the studio each day in humble gratitude for whatever lessons await me. Eventually it brings me joy and peace and clarity. I hope my work brings that to others.