During a peaceful day of painting with Shoko Yatabe, we were so focused on making these abstract mandalalike patterns that it never occurred to us to think of drums. But life is so much about connecting the dots. In this case, downloading the oil painting photos onto the computer along with a photo of Seiji’s new drums made the connection wonderfully obvious. The drum set that was nowhere in evidence whilst we were painting — they were back upstairs in Seiji’s room — mysteriously insinuated their energy into our paintings. We were listening as well, I ought to add, to a Celtic Women’s music CD with powerful drumming at times.
Colors are subtle expressions of vibration. Drums intensify vibrations. The correlation between Seiji’s real drums and our paintings indicates how we really do pick up subtle vibrations when we enter a room. We are sensitive to the presence of people and belongings in the room that preceded us. This could help explain why some spaces are so conducive to our creativity while others are not.