Return of the King

You are making art, and you feel that your creations should support you. Is this a reasonable demand, or not? Did anyone guarantee such an outcome?

Let’s look and dig deep. Having your art seen and acquired by collectors adds up to prestige and money. But, what if this is not happening? Your philosophy will make the difference between fulfillment and failure.

The essence of making art is to be in that magical space of creation where time and space support your passion. Everything after the painting is marketing, timing, and a bit of luck. To get at the bottom line of making it as an artist, the point is to do whatever it takes to keep going so that you can be in that sublimely powerful space of creation. If your art isn’t yet paying the bills, you must step up. Otherwise, who is fooling whom?

The true artist will always find a way. 

Talisman of Awareness

A question that often arises among art lovers as well as artists themselves: What is the purpose of art?

Here, we are not talking about advertising, illustration, or any other artwork with a predefined motive or purpose. We are talking about art from the soul, the collective unconscious, which is creation magic in the material world.

Such art has one overriding purpose for the artist and the collector. Such art reminds us to break out from the pack, to question authority, to confront mindless dogma, to be free from social conditioning, and in the end, to think and be for ourselves, whatever the cost may be.

Place yourself in the scenario to see where you stand in the stream of awareness.

Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

For over 25 years, I’ve been using Apple computers—a tool I rely on each day.

We know that Steve Jobs was one of the co-founders of Apple. The other day, I had the opportunity hear and watch him for the first time. He was speaking at the Stanford University graduation ceremonies some six years ago.

The title of his talk was this: How to live before you die.

As a teaser: What possible connection could there be between calligraphy and the success of the Apple Macintosh?

For those interested in spending 15 quality minutes with an innovator, please click here.

Free to Be

If you could distance yourself from your species, and then look at the world dispassionately, you might see things through the lucid lens of awareness, instead of murky mindless societal conditioning.

There are exemplary individuals, and wondrous human achievements. 

But, if we look at the species as a whole when it comes to being stewards of the planet, then an F- grade is being generous. Let’s say there was an out of control species called the ‘doomers’ ravaging the planet for resources, we would classify them as pests, and summarily hunt them down to exterminate the problem.

To cite the famous Pogo quotation: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

What now? What next? Unfortunately, most humans don’t have a built-in barometer that tells them it’s time to stop mindless propagation. In the end, Mother Nature will restore balance at a cost that will be brutal.

There’s an insightful and prophetic scene from the 1999 film, the Matrix, which puts the current state of humanity into perspective. Agent Smith isn’t human; he’s a digital agent of the Matrix, a computer-generated world that is accepted as our everyday reality.

Here it is:

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Sweetie Boy, the cockatiel

The other day, I kicked back on a chair facing Sweetie Boy, the cockatiel. My head leaned back on one large armrest, and my legs dangled over the other.

As I was watching Sweetie Boy go about his business, he eventually stopped on a perch and turned his back to me. You can see from the above photo, the bird’s mid-back is a mottled gray and off-white.

Sweetie Boy suddenly stretched out his wings, pull them back in, shook himself, ruffling his feathers. What happened next was amazing. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

A photorealistic image of a face appeared in his feathered mid-back section. But, this was not some arbitrary image among a random overlay of feathers, as the brain is constantly trying to give meaning to patterns. The portrait, beard, and all, was of my longtime master art teacher, Max Shertz who had recently departed this mortal coil.

Synchronicity. I leave you to come to your own conclusions.

For those interested in my time with Max, the master, please click here.

You can also learn about a great creator and view his marvelous artworks.