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Returning to the same subject is never really about repeating myself.

Sometimes I come back because I feel a deep connection as if the place still has more to tell me.  The first painting might have captured a greeting but not yet the conversation.

Other times, a familiar motif becomes a quiet studio partner.  I no longer need to search for what to paint, so I can concentrate on how: the timing of a wash, the temperature of a shadow, the balance of edges, the courage to simplify, etc.

And there are days when I return simply out of curiosity and play.  What will happen today?  What will this mood, this light, this moment bring?

The subject may appear the same but the painter is different.  Time passes, experience accumulates and something subtle shifts...  In that sense, each revisit is a small discovery.

I painted this café in the French Quarter twice.  The first time, I was simply walking by when the interior stopped me in my tracks.  It felt like a moment from a film - full of quiet drama, story, and atmosphere.  Painting it was my way of holding on to that discovery, preserving it as a lovely memory before it drifted away.

The second painting came a couple of years later, unexpectedly.  I had reconnected with artists in the area whom I had met during that earlier trip and suddenly New Orleans returned to me in a rush - not only the image of the café, but the voices, the warmth, the feeling of being there.

This time I was not painting just what I saw.  I was painting what I had lived.

The place may look similar but memory had added its own colors.