Beauty or Depth

When I get compliments on my paintings they are most often directed towards the bright joyful ones like the image above.  As I receive these compliments, I think to myself "why don't you like the paintings that tell a real story?"  It irritates me that the paintings people appreciate are the ones that simply sit on the wall and look pretty.  What happens to the paintings that expose the more difficult aspects of life?  What happens to the stories that tell a painful truth?  Most often we bury them.  We shuffle them under a rug instead of allowing them to speak from our walls.  Our society hates hard truths.  We would rather fake happiness than examine the causes of pain.  We would rather stare at a manifested creation of joy than an image of difficult reality.

Sadness paves a path for joy.  Hopelessness motivates great discovery.  Shattering moments make room for powerful rebuilds.  I feel more joy looking at an emotionally charged image than a perfectly crafted happy one because I know that by expressing a struggle on canvas the artist is in the process of discovering something truly amazing.

Connecting Lines

Wherever I travel, I always find little reminders that we are all connected.  This painting is a reminder that we all need to let everything that separates us fade into the background as we focus on what brings us together.  One can find clotheslines strung between trees, doorways, deck poles, or street lights all over the world.  I have seen them in every country I have been to; from Ghana and El Salvador to France and Italy.  Whenever I see them, I feel a warm shiver flow down my spine as the distance that separates me from the inhabitants of all other countries slowly melts away.  We are all in this together.  We all experience catastrophes, enlightenments, loss, love, success, and failure.  Sometimes, the reminder that we need comes in the form of a simple clothesline which represents an act that everyone around the world has in common.

Quiet Contemplation

Humans stand apart from other mammals because we are able to contemplate our existence and advance towards a higher state of being.  Turning away from experiences that develop character, failing to seek betterment, and denying an opportunity to learn would defy the laws of creation and extinguish the fire that fuels human progression. 

Whenever life becomes stagnant and you stop progressing, the universe will find a way to force you back into forward motion.

Worried Mother

A Mother weeps for her children.  She watches as they make poor choices.  As they deface her beauty and sabotage what she works to provide.  She witnesses her children as they kill their kin.  She feels each blow as they fight for an unattainable cause.  She weeps for what's lost.  She weeps for what might have been.  She weeps for suffering and destruction.  She weeps for hatred and lack of compassion.

Mother Earth weeps for her children and what they have done.  She weeps as she prays for change to come.

Behind Culture

Behind culture there is community, family and love and there is division, judgement and hatred.  There is faith, compassion and acceptance and there is condemnation, betrayal and exile.  If understood and embraced, culture can unite.  If misapplied and scorned, culture can isolate.









My friend, Whitney, told me a story about a girl she knew in college who was afraid of foreigners.  If anyone of a different ethnicity was near, she would do her best to avoid them.  She didn't know how to communicate with them and she had no interest in trying.  Her fear stemmed from an ignorance to any culture different from her own.  One day, Whitney invited her friends over for dinner including this girl with a phobia of foreigners.  Whitney dressed up in a tunic and scarf to hide most of her face.  When the girl arrived she took one look at Whitney and walked the other direction.  She spent the whole night trying to avoid one of her best friends unknowing that hidden under a foreign dress was a person she admired and respected.  At the end of the night Whitney took off the scarf revealing herself to her friend.  Her friend was in shock that the scary foreigner was actually one of her best friends.  This is a perfect demonstration of how we let culture divide us.  Behind the blinds of cultural differences there are individuals with the same worries and desires as you or me.  When embraced culture can unite us and teach us more about our self and our place in the world.  When scorned culture wraps us in a dark cloak of ignorance.    

The good we possess

We all possess beauty and good.  It is planted within us from the day we are born.  We hold the ability to nurture it and watch it grow.  Although at times it is hidden in the darkness, it is never gone.  When the light hits it again, it will shine brilliant and pure.

Freedom to Live

Freedom to live requires the ability to; make a mistake and forgive yourself, appreciate your own beauty,  expand your horizons without limits, explore foreign paths without fear of losing yourself, pursue your dreams while remaining unaffected by failure, express love without hesitation or restraint.

Windowsill

 Living life from a windowsill observing instead of participating. Gazing out at the world longing for inspiration to change.  Haunted by a damaging past but petrified to pursue a future.  Lonely trapped in the cage of walls you built around yourself but unable to tear them down.  No one wants to enter and you refuse to leave.  Only you can get up from the windowsill and head for the door.

A Traveling Soul

 A wandering soul travels the world absorbing cultures but never choosing one.  It seeks answers to questions that do not have definite answers.  It enters many homes but will never have its own.  It fits everywhere and belongs nowhere. 











This soul moves forwards but never has a final destination.  It follows a path that no map can chart.  You can see the footprints from where it has been but can never predict where they will lead. 












This soul does not have just one identity.  It molds and morphs to wherever it is, adapting but never conforming.  It never forgets who it was but never defines who it is.  There is no one it can not be and there is no one person it is.












This soul connects with everyone and is kin to no one.  It builds friendships without tying knots.  It bonds without permanence and loves without boundaries.  It stands alone never accepting to be the person people love.



These are small water color paintings that I did on my travels through Baja Mexico.  As I was traveling, I felt an incredible joy shadowed by an incredible melancholy.  For a year I felt and embraced settlement.  It was a calming of all the scattered pieces of my soul as they sat and bonded with their tranquil home.  There was a relief to this settlement.  A large decompressing breath was released from my tense chest as I accepted having a home.  As I sat in an art gallery with the artist discussing his work in Spanish I felt each settled piece of my soul begin to lift.  Once their bonds were broken, they began to swirl around with the endless possibilities of adventure.  I realized that a lonely few remained glued to the tranquil soil of Buena Vista Colorado.  Do I follow the swirl of adventure or do I embrace the peace of settlement?