My intention as a painter and writer is to capture the external activity of my life on canvas, wood or paper. It’s imperative to my cerebral survival. Whether it’s a paint brush or a computer, my ability to capture what I believe in a moment of time as my subjective truth is the challenge of my creative psyche.

What is my desire? To attack the wood, the canvass or the blank page with my creative needs and wants. Smearing shades of blue or raw sienna across textured cloth and hanging it on bare walls that calls out to be more than invisible. Or, to type words on a bright lit screen spitting out what I know and don’t know from an HP printer. I don’t want to care about anything but my creative spiritual flow. I want to create with complete abandon and sign my name.

Freedom… let those that have fallen onto my artistic path and wrath deal with it. I’m nothing more than the vehicle through which the message is being delivered. Is it really my task to monitor the emotions of the audience? Should I be concerned whether or not my brush stroke adds insult to their injury? As an artist do I pay homage to all that is holy or do I kneel down to the God of pigmentation and ink delivering my perception of art/life as I believe it to be?

Death will come…that’s a fact. So, I believe it’s reasonable for me to leave the bread crumbs of my creative truth behind for spectators and lovers to graze upon, while me not giving a damn on how unknown critics will judge or interpret my artistic exhibitionism.

I’m no longer a naïve colored girl frighten of people’s opinion of me. For years I held back like a woman who wants to be sexually free with her man, but doesn’t want him to believe her a whore. No more.

Gaila Patrice Turner