H is for HONORING your time and HUNKERING down to “just do it.” Create, paint, whatever your passion or priorities are, put them HIGH on your agenda. When one starts the day with social media, often the next thing one knows, the time has slipped away. (Ask me how I know this fact!)  Instead, schedule your work so you can get the most challenging things done first. 

Many moons ago, at least 25 to be more precise, a San Fransisco based art publisher caught me by surprise with a new term, high tech, high touch. As he simplistically explained it at the time, while trying to make a point, as we become more engrossed with technology overload, we will grasp for something more real. Art was his way of thinking.

Art education in the public schools has come a long way since I was a boy. In fact, it has gone through quite a few changes since I began my career as a professional art teacher nearly twenty years ago. Educational trends will come and go but, despite these trends, it’s always good to remember why you chose to teach in the first place. 

Words like art, creativity, craft, and design cover the broad meanings of a most interesting world. As does the word artist or artisan, which covers a massive worldwide group of thinkers and doers. Someone can say to you, I’m an artist, and in its most rawest of meanings, it would simply mean one who creates. But creates what? Art? That’s a big topic.

There’s a distinct change that happens in an artist after they have taken money in exchange for their art. What was an exploration into self expression, becomes in a sense, business. While many artists tend to repel the business side of art, they find themselves inherently stuck to it anyway. There are lots of hobbies in the world and certainly not all are ever confronted with finding a need for a financial transaction. But some are and art just happens to be one of them. Why then do so many artists feel funny about it?

To paraphrase Elizabeth Gilbert in her book, Big Magic, inspiration is the tingly, stomach dropping, arm chilling, full body experience that calls to you. Inspiration is what happens when that physical response lights you up like a neon sign pointing you (often pulling you) in a direction that begs further exploration. Inspiration is the prelude to an idea.

Influenced by my Aunt Dottie being a professional photographer for the government, and my brother’s early interest in being a shutterbug as a hobby, for me, after owning a few Kodak Instamatics and Polaroids, I took the plunge in purchasing my first true camera in the late 1970‘s. It was the newly released Cannon AE-1.

Art is a personal thing, one where many puzzle pieces come together to create an image to your liking. Within that analogy, imagine if puzzle pieces could be personalized, thus giving different results based on your wishes. In truth, in the world of art they can, and the image or images they become, can transform more than just a wall. They can also transform the room, your home and your life.

Okay, I’m about to loose my mind. No really, as an artist, someone who really cares about art as a form of human ingenuity and deep creative thinking, KA-BOOM!!! my brain has had enough. But this isn’t just about me is it? No, it never is. This is about all of us and how technology touches our society as a whole. Screens have taken over our lives. There, I’ve said it. We are now completely controlled by screens and the people who make them. This all to supposedly make our lives better and more full.

Is your art collection larger than your wall space?

Mine certainly is!  In fact, my art collection is growing!  Artist friends keep producing irresistible treasures, and I can't put my brushes down. What's a collector to do?  Let me share some of the ways I store and display my art.

Think you have a cool home? Wish you had a cool home? Well, the mid-century modern style is hot in home design! The 50’s and 60’s are back to the future! It’s fun, it’s artful, it’s plentiful, it’s collectible, and best of all, compared to new furniture most of it is even affordable.

Creativity. What it’s not: something reserved for only an elite few nor is it something that flourishes without attention, space and choice. So what is it, where does it come from, and why do we have it at all?

In about six months I will have been selling my paintings for thirty years. Most days I only think about the present and future of things, but other days I ponder the past and what makes up a long career. Not just one as an artist, but in doing anything.

What is creativity and who determines whether you have it or not? Your first grade art teacher? Your high school creative writing teacher? The audience? You? Left to their own devices most people do not admit to being creative. As if it’s a curse. “Oh no, I’m not creative at all!” Even highly acclaimed artists don’t typically walk around saying, “look at me, I’m so creative!” I believe creativity is the spark of imagination and those people who are considered creative or who might call themselves artists have simply taken that spark of imagination to the place where it meets action. Everyone has the possibility but only some will dare to ignite the spark.

I’ve been riding motorcycles most of my life. While I certainly have the occasion to ride alone, more often I’m with a my friend Treavor. Now to say that Treavor and I ride together is a bit of an understatement, as we have ridden thousands upon thousands of miles together over more than the last decade. The state of Virginia is motorcycling paradise and so, our rides are rarely ever less than a couple hundred miles, and we ride twelve months out of the year. This means we ride in varied conditions.

So allow me to paint you a picture. You, as part of an audience, represent a beautiful beach, and the refreshing folk duo of Flagship Romance is the ocean, their waves rolling in over you, melodically drenching you with stories from their sea of life. Some of their waves are soft and of angelic harmony. While others, white tipped and towering, come crashing in, emotionally reaching every grain of sand.