I love to paint.
I have been teaching myself to paint by doing it, over and over. My first solo show was at Another Gallery in Roanoke, Virginia in 1980; my last solo show was in 2015 at the Moss Art Center, at Virginia Tech.
It is the problem-solving, in making art, or building, or gardening that both pleases me and drives me crazy. If I am doing what I like best, working on a many-panel painting that tells a story, or just rebuilding stone walls, then I get plenty of pleasures and pains.
I live on the New River, in Southwest Virginia, on a dead-end road in a self-built house. I am lucky enough to have traveled in many parts of the world, and all has become grist for my art and life.
— Pat West