After 25 Years, Why I Still Paint Through the Night

14 hours ago
3 min read

Painting under the light of the Blue Moon that appeared in May 2026

After more than two decades of painting professionally, I sometimes wonder why I still find myself standing in front of a canvas at three o’clock in the morning. I am in my fifties. People begin gently suggesting balance at this stage of life. Slow down a little. Protect your energy. Work smarter. Pace yourself.

And yet here I am again... deep in the midst of another painting that seems to have entirely overtaken me.

For the past four days alone, I have put nearly fifty hours into what has become the largest canvas I have ever attempted: 76” x 76”. And I know there are still many long days and nights ahead before it is finished. There are moments during paintings like this when my life slips wildly out of balance.

Sleep becomes secondary.

Time disappears.

The outside world grows quieter and more distant.

Midnight comes and goes unnoticed.

Then one o’clock. Two o’clock. Three.

And strangely enough… I am okay with this.

Because every so often a painting arrives that does not merely ask to be made, but rather, demands to be brought into the world. Over the course of my life, I have given thousands upon thousands of hours to painting in the wee hours of the night. Sometimes it feels almost irrational… as if each day were my last day alive and there was still one more story that needed to be told… one more song that wished to be sung into the world through paint.

Offering all that I have.

Not carefully measured portions of myself.

Not what is convenient.

Not what is strategic.

Everything.

And perhaps what strikes me most is that this hunger has not faded with age or even perceived success. Last year, after feeling a certain sense of burnout, I intentionally gave myself time and space to see whether I might naturally begin stepping away from painting a bit… whether perhaps the fire had finally softened after all these years. If anything, remarkably, it has intensified. There is a strange temptation in the art world that emerges once a person reaches a certain degree of commercial success, and I have seen it happen many times over the years. The work becomes safer. More predictable. Sometimes even lazy. A person begins coasting on reputation rather than risking themselves again and again in the work itself. I understand the temptation. There were certainly moments in my own career where it would have been easier to let up and coast a bit. And yet somehow, I have found myself doing the opposite.

To my own surprise, I seem willing to pour even more into paintings now than I did in my younger years. Perhaps not with the same youthful speed, but with greater depth of focus. Greater willingness to sit in uncertainty. Greater patience for listening, and a commitment to staying with a painting however long it takes to express itself fully.

And yes, sometimes I wonder what other parts of life I may be missing while standing alone in the studio night after night... my eyes tired from the long hours, quietly aware that such deep commitment to the painting process can, for some artists, eventually affect their eyesight.

But then there are these moments…

The rest of the world asleep.

The house silent.

And something unexplainable begins to stir within me.

Something that is beyond me and me all at the same time as I disappear, with my ear to the ground, listening to what wishes to come through… revealing itself slowly, layer by layer, mark by mark. Brush in hand, almost like a sword - willing to cut through illusion, distraction, performance, noise… searching instead for a small fragment of truth and beauty hidden within this strange human life, with its winding twists and painful turns. Perhaps that is what keeps calling me back to the canvas after all these years.

Not ambition.

Not success.

Not even discipline.

But devotion.

A devoted heart still standing at the canvas long after midnight… ever listening… ever searching… ever willing to begin again.