About the artist

Context and guideposts

What is art?

Language is an amazing thing. That we are able to communicate with each other, that we struggle to use sounds and marks on paper and computer screen to express feelings, emotions, and ideas is miraculous. And yet, it seems that some words fall short of achieving a universal understanding. I think that “art” is among those words that mean different things to different people.

So, here’s my own working definition of “art,” subject to change pending further growth:

Art is a means of expression by which we externalize feelings, thoughts, and visions concerning our experience of life, the world around us, our internal world, and imagined worlds. It is also a way for the divine to enter into the world.

At our best as artists we are working in a collaborative relationship with the creative force, inviting and allowing the energy to flow through us. We are participating in incarnation.

The concept of “creative force” differs across individuals, cultures, and belief systems. Call it God, higher power, universe, nature, Qi, or good vibrations. It’s the force at work in the universe that is moving all things in the direction of what is good. 

Why do you make art?

Stated simply, making art is my calling. Deep in my soul I know that this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I wasn’t taught this growing up and I didn’t wake up one day to this revelation. It’s something that came over time and through a lot of self examination. I haven’t always made art full time, but am now, through a mixture of privilege and good fortune—mostly a supportive husband—able to focus a large part of my energy on this calling.

How did you “became” an artist?

I was born this way. The seed that grew into an artist was planted at or before birth. I feel as though I’ve blundered along searching for what I’m truly supposed to do with my life, and along the way I’ve been fortunate to do many interesting things. At a certain point I took time to look back and what I saw was what I’ll call “creative making” as a thread that ran through my whole life. Becoming an artist was simply (though not really simple) matter of leaning into that identity and eventually having the strength to claim the title “Artist” for myself and to know that I was worthy.

Things worth reading

• Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

• Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

• Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

• Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

• Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

• Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Other reading that might offer insight into who I am

• All of J.R.R. Tolkien because I really am a nerd at heart and anyone who can create and entire multi-cultural universe—not to mention a language—and in doing so give voice to the trauma of war deserves to be seen and heard. This is art.

• Child, Bertholle, and Beck, Mastering the Art of French Cooking
  This a perfectly written book that is not only a touchstone and invaluable kitchen resource, but also a living monument to hard work, determination, and a commitment to doing one’s very best…and then doing a bit more.

• Robinson, Morisson, and Sale, Elements of Cartography, 4th Ed (1978)
  I don’t really recommend reading this, at least not this old edition, or really any edition unless you want to be a mapmaker, but this book changed my life. A few weeks after picking it up in a friend’s dorm room in the early 80’s I changed my major from Bio/Pre-Dental to Geography and never looked back. I just had to give it a shout out.

Sources of Visual inspiration

• Steven Aimone, Expressive Drawing

• All of the work of Richard Diebenkorn

• Pretty much all of the American abstract expressionists

• This a a woefully incomplete list, but a start…