Where do ideas come from? What creates what, why, for whom, with what intent? Most catholic saints are only known by their posthumously painted portraits, recognised as made under divine inspiration to define the saint. The nuns that taught me as a child used this inspiration as one of the proofs of the existence of god. At my local art museum in Carcassonne there are three small portraits of saints. They are St Anthony, by Giovanni Riolla, an 18th century painter from Naples: Saint Peter weeping in repentance, by Juseppe Ribera (1591-1652): and a self-portrait as John the Baptist, by Henri Jean-Guillaume Martin (1860 – 1945) Here spanning three centuries we find one straight saint (didn’t say which St Anthony nor were there clues in the picture), one saint in action (crying) and one saint as the artist pretending to be a saint. By what authority did the artists make these bold pronouncements? I limited myself chiefly to saints who did not get canonised officially by the Catholic Church but were chosen by popular acclaim, pre-congregation (around 1070) Reading until I found one that appealed to me, that spoke to me, that communicated in some way, I would paint them. So, the question underlying the Saints series is one of attribution. And after all, I still have no answers.