James Nares' paintings are magic.  Swooping slashes.  Waves.  Gigantic calligraphic signs.  Amplified moebius strips, undulating ribbons of color.  They appear on canvases of their own accord.  James drags them, shapeless and buried, into the house.

He unwraps mountains of bubblewrap; hammers, levels and hangs.

Immediately we are swallowed by them; the oppulence of these dream images has the power to transform reality.

James' mother once asked me, "Doesn't James ever paint you?"

I said, "no."  She said, "What a shame, he has done such lovely portraits of..."

But when I think about it, the answer is:  I don't know.  Do I flatter myself and imagine that these dancing brushstrokes are a portrait of me, or of our daughters?  Are they thoughts?  Broken shards of movement?  Film stills?  Poems?

Here's what I know about James:  the kind of shoes he likes to wear, the kind of toast and brand of marmalade he could eat for breakfast every day (if there wasn't any oatmeal), how often he flosses his teeth.  Here's what I don't know: how James Nares makes his work.

More than a decade ago, when I had a crush on James Nares (like any number of young women), I spent time in his old studio, ostensibly to do an article on him.  He washed out his pencil holder to offer me a cup of English Breakfast tea.  I brushed my arms and face with moose hair, badger hair, horse hair brushes.  I stared deep into his eyes so that he would imagine I had very serious ideas about his art, rather than his profile and the loose winged gestures of his beautiful hands.

Now, years later, I rarely venture into his studio.  It is his sanctuary.  His escape.  A private place for invention.  One better suited for the passion of an affair, rather than the crushing substance of a wife (and all that she stands for: children, bills, obligations).  His studio is dangerous.  Full of the intoxicating smell of wet paint, the humming energy of physical effort.  I am awkward amidst the grace of the hand-made brushes.  I put down my bag and knock over a table.  I lean on something still damp.  I am never quite sure where to sit.

I leave quickly.  I have never seen James paint.  It's as mysterious and inexplicable as electricity.

I prefer faith.  To wait for the translucent, transient canvases to dance in and change the rhythm of our days.