Why Pat Paints Women

Amazed

Why do I paint women....

I am amazed by women. I am aware that can sound like a cheesy line but it is true. This is the reason why I paint them. I am trying to understand.

I am lucky enough that some women trust me enough to open up and tell me their innermost feelings, concerns, dreams, desires and fears. Every time this happens I truly feel humbled and honored. Those moments of true connection will stay with me forever. I am amazed at how many women I have met who are strong, intelligent, powerful women who truthfully don’t understand how incredible they are. To the person they can control any room they walk into. To the person I have seen powerful men become visibly stunned in their presence. These women can move mountains if they chose to do it.

One consistent theme I am hearing in these discussions… one’s desire to fill their soul. The conversations rarely are about "things" or "success".

When one is looking back to high school/ college days when you were near broke, drinking out of a keg of the cheapest beer you could find as some of the best times of your life, it makes you ask yourself some deep questions.

Today our society judges success in financial terms… which looking at our present economy we are screwed!!! As we start to look over our lives we must start asking ourselves things like.. Who am I …really? Who have I become? Am I the person I dreamed I would be when I was a 15 years old kid. It is that 15 year old dreamer who truly changes the world. Money usually never entered the thought process of the broke 15 year old kid who didn’t “know any better”. Those were pure dreams that most of us have forgotten about.

…we all are just trying to be accepted. We all just want to be loved. If you accept who you are, your warts and all.. people will accept you for you.. If you act a certain way to be accepted you will feel like a fraud no matter what you do or own. This is the mental place where insecurity grows wild. We all do it, either at work, with our neighbors, with our families.. even to ourselves. We think that promotion will validate us, that car will make me feel whole. How's that strategy really working out for us??????

If you want to start finding out who you really are today… go talk with a 9-10 year old kid who knows you. Ask them what they think about you. They will say oh aunt Susie your really nice and fun etc etc. Ask them for brutal honesty to pointed questions … most of them will give it to you… That honesty is the genius that children have in them. That honesty we all love does not last long. Who you are in those children's eyes...that is your legacy.. that is who you are.

Why do I paint women... because they inspire the greatness within us all. Sure I could paint flowers but it is not nearly as interesting to me. I paint with feeling and I feel the women around me.

I welcome these conversations because they turn into brutally honest discussions between two human beings who are trying to figure who they are. I always look forward to these conversations because my perceptions of the world get blown and I learn more about who I am as a man, a father and a husband... so yes it always comes back to being about me! :)

Be true to yourself.