As I Dream, I Paint by Laurel Burch
"Many realizations have come to me during my personal odyssey as an artist. For example, I am often asked if I travel for inspiration. Actually, for many years, the only traveling I did was in my own mind. With my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds, life itself is inspirational. I dream of mythical worlds and imagine ways I can share them with others. I am sure I learned this by spending a great deal of time in bed healing broken legs throughout my life. Through creative imagination, almost any part of life‘s journey—whether joyful or challenging—can be shared and positive in meaningful ways.”
“I am a self-taught artist and my tools are very simple. I have a passion for papers and brushes and gather them from all over the world. Often, I buy them simply because I think they are beautiful and they make me feel good when I look at them. A lot of times, I don’t use brushes at all—I put my hands right into the paints.”
“Though my mind is afire with ideas that all want to come out at once, I seem to prefer keeping the environment of my studio orderly and under some degree of control. There are always flowers on the table, music fills the room, and Matisse, my black lab and constant companion, is always at my feet (which are bare—somehow, I can think better in bare feet).”
"I think of my studio as more of an internal concept than an external physical space. It is sanctuary where I can dream and imagine and bring my passion for life out on paper but you might say I think of the whole world as a place to create and imagine. I carry this “inner sanctum studio” with me everywhere. Under an old oak tree near my home, on the beach in Mexico, at my kitchen table, in the back of a boat in the Mediterranean Sea. Even hospital beds have served as paint studios when that was where I needed to be. Wherever I am, imagination and inspiration go with me and so do paint brushes, paper, gold inks, and pens. I have as many art supplies as clothes in my bags when I travel, and if by chance I don’t, and art store is the first stop I make."
“The table in my studio, on the other hand, is a wild frenzy of paints and rags, pens, pencils, and inks that are not at all orderly. My parrot Rainbow adds to the air of chaos by hanging upside down from the lamp trying to eat paintbrushes and occasionally falling into the paint dishes, hence his name. (He was primarily green when he arrived in my life.) Baby lambs have slept at the foot of my bed, my parrots make frequent visits to the trees in the garden while I paint outside, and my burro Corazon and I go for walks up the mountain. It’s no wonder that I find the love of animals to be a tremendous source of happiness and inspiration!”