When I was in Gore, New Zealand in 2000-2 as Artist-in-Residence, I painted around 50 paintings.

Because I had thought of myself as primarily a stone sculptor, I was surprised to see so many of them just flowing right out of my hands!

Someone asked me where I got inspiration for them all. There are many ways I get inspiration for my work – dreams, flashes of words on the radio or media, ideas I hear discussed, meditations – and some right from Source, or the Heart.

I painted this one because many times I’ll either be lying down or just sitting around looking like I’m not doing much, but internally a great fire is raging, aching to come out, and I sit with it, giving it time, until I know what it wants to say. Then get up and do it.

You may have seen that Freedom is a theme I often use. Mainly because I have struggled so much to be free of society’s rigid conditioning, entrenched family ideals and destructive personal beliefs.

I have found, though, that Freedom is within our reach at all times – all we need to do is push the veil aside and climb through the portal.

So there we are, sitting with our internal furnace, ready to leap free through the veil. Could it really be that easy?

LIFE – original oils on canvas, 18″ x 18″ – not available right now – prints, yes.