Sam Francis

This internationally acclaimed American artist saw color as a "holy substance" into which he poured his dreams and mystic visions. A Californian who is often called a Second Generation Abstract Expressionist, Sam Francis' philosophic and geographic bases have always distinguished him from his East Coast contemporaries. In the course of the film the painter travels to the three places that have been central to his development: Paris, Japan, and California. This global latitude is only surpassed by his travels inward, the self-exploration that characterizes Francis' art and his own life. Through recounting his dreams and examples of his own poetry, Francis expresses his interest in Jungian psychology and Eastern thought. As he mixes and prepares a spectrum of colors, he discusses their poetic power, or, in his own words, color as "the patter that plays across the membrane of the mind." Francis died in 1994, 20 years after the making of this film.