Joe Hurter

Go out one day and be a patron in Nature?s great theatre when the curtain of night draws back ? Hills, valleys and distant mountains come alive, and sunlight floods the stage before you. As an artist, you are on stage performing. You are interpreting, and it?s your special way of doing it that matters. ?No-one can paint a cloud? ? You say ?may as well try to catch the wind? and it doesn?t last long. It changes, taking its image with it. Time has been painted in droplets of water: gleaming white vessels in full sail, their underbellies tinged with all manner of blue and grey alchemy. Who can capture on the canvas the ephemeral brushwork of the skies? In pursuit of pleasure we rise to the challenge, trapping at least some of the wonder before us. Our painting can never say it all, nor would we want it to. It only says what we have found more exciting, peaceful, special. The way in which you apply the paint, with brush or knife, the textures you create, will be the handwriting by which you are known. And so our paintings, like our children, will be our contribution to posterity. Let?s not worry about the future, though. It?s today that matters. Getting involved. Growing. Learning to see, and getting in touch with who we are.