I want to tell you about a moment I have lived four times.

The first time was in a surgical theater. The preparation was complete. The procedure was about to begin. I would take a breath, make the first incision, and feel the shift — the conscious planning mind stepping back, the trained hands taking over, the work proceeding with a quiet certainty I could not have manufactured by trying harder.

In fifty years of microsurgery, that moment happened thousands of times. Athletes call it the zone. Psychologists call it flow. I called it the operating room.

The second time was on a ski slope. Forty years of standing at the top of a challenging run and facing the same choice. I could stand there worrying — cataloguing the risks, second-guessing my ability. Or I could take a few deep breaths, push off, and trust that forty years of conditioned reflexes knew exactly what to do if I stayed out of their way.

I always pushed off. I always got down the hill.

The third time was in my greenhouse. Three thousand orchid plants at one point, each requiring specific light and humidity and temperature. The experienced orchid grower does not think about each plant individually. The eye moves across the greenhouse and registers what is wrong, what is right, what needs attention — without conscious analysis. The knowledge lives in the seeing, not in the thinking.

The fourth time — and the one that surprised me most — was in my living room in Louisville, standing in front of a canvas.

The sketch was done. The composition was transferred. I picked up a brush. And the same thing happened. The shapes arrived without my consciously placing them. The details came without my thinking about them individually. I was not planning. The painting was happening through me rather than by me.

When I finish a painting and step back to look at it, something remarkable happens every time. Intellectually I know I painted it. But on another level — it is hard to believe I created something so beautiful. That disconnect is not self-doubt. It is the signature of flow. The work came through me. I was the instrument.

I share this because I believe this experience is available to every serious student of painting. Not at the beginning. Not without preparation. But with the right foundation — the trained observation, the compositional instinct, the practiced hand — there comes a moment when the brush knows where to go before the mind decides.

That is what we are working toward together.

The sketch is the door. Everything after it is flow.

My course begins July 25, 2026. Visit gordensoilpainting.com.

Gorden McMurry — The Painting Physician

Oil Painter·Landscape Painting Instructor·Ear Surgeon (Retired)

Kore Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky

gordensoilpainting.com·[email protected]