An alchemist understands why I wrote: “My paintings are the ‘ashes’ of my ‘art.’” Fire, earth, air, water circulate among each other. Fire is necessary for the transmutation of matter into spirit or what the materialists focus on: turning lead into gold. The materialists never admit to reversing the process, and turning gold into lead. I am being polite. I am not a materialist. I turned my paintings into “ashes” in order to rise through the sky toward the blue that waited on the other side of what I could see. An alchemist dwells in the possible, while I inhabit the impossible, intoxicated on color. That is why I am not an alchemist. I was born in an atomic age where all matter can suddenly vanish to leave behind nothing but what can be imagined. I want to live inside the serene color that emerges after the sudden flash of light that spreads across this planet, turning it to ashes. The painting’s blue world.