This one got closer to something I could recognize, and I had to resist finishing it. It started to feel like a sign, like it wanted to mean something clearly, and that’s usually where I stop.

The gold is more deliberate here, almost careful. It stands up instead of spreading out. But the rest of the painting doesn’t support that certainty—it keeps it slightly off, slightly provisional.

That small circle at the bottom came late. It shifts everything. It pulls the image down, gives it weight, maybe even doubt. I kept it because it interrupts the sense that the piece is arriving anywhere definitive.

I trust it more when it holds back like that.