I’m a self-taught artist and have been drawing and painting for four decades. I’m interested in the process that creates a painting. Although it involves imagination, this process is affected by chance, so that when I begin a picture I have only a half-formed image of what the finished painting might look like. The completed piece only slightly resembles the image that I had in mind when I began it. I think of this as improvisation. Over the years that I’ve been painting, I’ve learned to trust the brush and the materials – to let them take the lead – and not to think too much about how it will end up . . . until I get to that end.