This painting was painted on top of an older painting I had done which was called “I’ll think About It”. I think I was running short on stretcher bars at the time, but the name seems rather fitting as I do tend to think about things for a while before making decisions. So I started with the painting on the right, which is a sort of minimalist ochre texture that represented mulling things over in your mind over time.

This painting is about appreciating the moments that we spend with those who are important to us. But not just that. It is about being able to forget about time and space and just to live in the moment. To forget about problems. To forget about responsibilities and disappointments and just concentrate, for a time, on being with that other person and having fun.

When we do this, we allow ourselves to live in the moment and to create vivid memories that we can draw on in the future, when things may not be so good. Those special memories we create can then help us to remember that life can be joyous, and that our bonds with others are genuine.

For every dream lived there are other dreams that have dried up, deflated, or been abandoned, left by the wayside. Happy moments make today’s problems less daunting and, though we can only live them once at the time, we remember how they made us feel. These memories are not really stored in the mind. They are remembered in the heart, they are recalled through the heart. Nothing can take their place.

Looking back on this painting, it is about the contrast of happy fleeting moments against the broader realization of the finite nature of time that we are subject to as humans. Once a moment has been lived, we must store it, while it is still fresh, to be recalled later. We store these moments forever by acknowledging that we are grateful for them at the time.