"Whatever I do, this is what comes out."

Source: SatinKnots

It's morose, my wife says. Wallander, the BBC television series with Kenneth Branagh as detective Kurt Wallander. (Via Netflix.)

I love the intensity of it. And maybe I'm happy to see someone more morose than I...

Near the end of the first episode, Kurt Wallander visits his father Povel, an artist. The father described his work to the son. I thought it was just wonderful, what he said, like a metaphor for something, for my writing on this blog. I went back and watched it again, and wrote down what Povel said. Then I found the quote online, too.

When you were a boy you used to ask me about my work, the painting. "Why are they always the same, Dad? Why don't you do something different?"

I could never explain. You see, each morning when I start, I think I'll do something else: this morning I'll paint a seascape, this morning I'll do a still life, maybe an abstract, just a splash of paint, see where it takes me.

And then I start. And every time I paint the same thing -- the landscape. Whatever I do, this is what comes out.