Creatively Thinking

  Featured image: Roller Coaster Ride Have We Become Nothing More Than Wind-Up Toys? I have been thinking about this idea for some time now, ever since I started doing 3-D work about this time last year. This idea has become something special, an idea that has been ruminating in my head for over a year, ever since I began gathering antique wind-up toys. I am naturally afraid to start it, though, because the idea is soooo big. I think I might have already painted it, and it has been in my head for over 15 years. The work I did a long time ago called Roller Coaster Ride was red and very, very big. Some of you have seen it, and some of you haven’t. I was saving it for so long—not knowing why—but I sold it last year to a very, very special couple, and we helped them hang it. When I saw where it was hung, I knew the minute we hung it that it belonged there, in their lovely home, with all their other wonderfully collected art. I knew I had made the right decision to sell it. But now—can...

  Featured image: Hawk III I’m honored and grateful to share that my painting Hawk III has been accepted into the San Diego Watercolor Society’s 46th International Exhibition. This year’s exhibition received 671 entries from 345 artists representing 20 countries and 35 states. From this remarkable field of work, juror Ana Laura Salazar selected just 105 paintings for inclusion. I’m deeply honored that Hawk III will be among them. For as long as I can remember, birds have found their way into my work. Nature has always been my greatest teacher, and the hawk’s soaring perspective reminds us to rise above the immediate and see with greater clarity. In Hawk III , I wanted to capture not only the beauty and power of this remarkable bird, but also the spirit it represents—the courage to rise above challenges and trust one's vision. Thank you to juror Ana Laura Salazar, the San Diego Watercolor Society, and everyone involved in organizing this exceptional international exhibition. I’m g...

Featured image: Thrush II I find that my connection to birds gives me the feeling I need to imagine and understand what the air is like that allows birds to fly, but doesn’t allow me to fly except in my imagination. The idea that they travel so far and can stir my imagination through something invisible called air—AIR. This air is magical, mystical, and symbolic for me when I think about it, because I can never really see it, but I know it is there. Birds can take flight in it at any time. Take flight into my mystical, magical space. Science can, at times, make it visible to me—but it is not the same. Not the same as a bird spreading its wings and taking off and flying. I can’t spread my arms and take off into the air. It just can’t happen. Dragons used to. Well, they tell me they used to be able to. We don’t see dragons anymore. Do they only happen in our imagination now? Gosh, I need to close my eyes and click my ruby slippers together twice and ask to go home.

Featured image: Sunrise in the Morning at the Lake For some reason, I woke up earlier than usual this morning and looked across the lake and saw the lovely, wonderful orange, pink, and yellow sunrise glowing just everywhere. I mean everywhere, just everywhere. I couldn’t stand it. I just had to get up, make coffee, and go to the other side of the house and watch the sun rise through the trees in the woods. What is it about starting the day with a cup of coffee and watching the sun rise? It just fills your heart and soul until it is about to burst. And you try to put some of these wonderful sensations in your treasure box to save them for a rainy day, and there just isn’t enough room. Gosh. Memories. Happy memories. Written down, I rarely get beyond them—little fragments from here and there. One that always comes to mind is the last day of a canoeing trip. We got up quickly and cleaned up the tent, rolled up our sleeping bags, made coffee, and, with mugs in hand, walked up the hill. We ...

  Featured image:  Daffodils In A Vase with Yellow Stripes I cut some daffodils from my garden yesterday and put them in a vase. This really is one of the first years I have been able to do that. Usually, the deer get them first. They look so cute on my kitchen windowsill in a tall vase with yellow stripes. It brings a smile to my face just writing about them. I think daffodils are supposed to do that, aren’t they? “She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbor: ‘Winter is dead.’” — A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young If one pleasure is worth a thousand daffodils, then one is too few. — Wordsworth

  Featured image: Straight from the Heart “I cannot expect even my own art to provide all the answers—only to hope it keeps asking the right questions.” — Wassily Kandinsky