Express Gratitude and Grace

Throughout this life, you can never be certain of living long enough to take another breath. – Zen Master HuangBo This is my Four Hundredth Post – 400!!! I started this blog to rekindle long-smoldering artful fires, and to hurl positive thunderbolts into the gaping void of antagonism and mistrust roiling the world. We all …

The Sense of Wonder

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. – Emerson Wonders abound in the day-to-day world. We only need to untangle ourselves from the biases and illusions binding our senses to realize the small miracles around us. Creative people know the feeling when the veils drop away and you embrace …

Life from Art

It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. – Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I have opened a store in Etsy to sell my art called “Life from Art”. I only sell and ship to the US for now. The first name I chose had been taken …

Art is the Soul’s Inner Pictures

Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye.. it also includes the inner pictures of the soul. – Edvard Munch Imagine a scene: A clan of Ice Age people huddle together in a cave shelter. The dim sun drops below the horizon. Bitter winds howl through the valley below. The light of …

Your Personal Renaissance

An artist must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye. – Michelangelo According to the dictionary, a freehand drawing is “done by hand without the use of instruments, measurements, etc”. You use your hand and observational skills. All children know how to do this, and some remember how after they …

The Soul of the Brush

The painter has the Universe in his eyes and hands. – Leonardo da Vinci Humans have been painting with brushes for over 16,000 years. Ancient people created brushes from feathers and hair attached to sticks. Chinese brushes originated over 6,000 years ago and are still used throughout Asia. As with the creation of any tool, …

Art and Artifice

Art blazes from the soul. You are an artist. You express your art within your life. Your life’s work flows from the art of balancing creative, passionate anxiety. Art is not exclusive to artists, rather art is the creative expression of life. Living is an art. Art is life. Art is a lie that makes …

Set Your Imagination Free

Stay firmly in your path and dare. Be wild two hours a day! – Paul Gauguin Human beings have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Even the most ancient cultures can only be traced back a few thousand years, less than one percent of human existence. The impacts of the Industrial Revolution have …

Conjunction with the Unknown

Don’t try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition. – Madeleine L’Engle It isn’t obligation that gets our feet moving in the mornings; it is anticipation. The anticipation of something better. And the deep down awareness that the something we achingly deserve in our bones may never arrive, may …

My Monolith and Me

Everything you can imagine is real. – Pablo Picasso There’s been a lot of news about monoliths appearing in different parts of the world. Some clever folks have been enjoying themselves, so I thought I would join them. What got me going was I saw some moneymaking schemers in the news saying they were selling …