At an art exhibition I was at, an artist whose works I admired came over and looked at my paintings and said that the height and distance of certain parts of my paintings were inaccurate and that I should make sure to correct that in my future works.  I knew that what he said was true and I had not painted that scene accurately to life. (It had been intentional to emphasize the emotional points, but that didn’t seem relevant to him). But, do you know what happened shortly after having that conversation? It sold. My painting with the bad perspective sold for more money than I had ever sold a…

Making Art is a Gift—Grace—We Receive and Serve “If the work comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am, serve me.’ then the job of the artist, great or small, is to serve. The amount of the artist’s talent is not what it is about”  — Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, Walking on Water, pp 23. Our job as writers, painters, and artists of every endeavor is not to try to think up the greatest thing, to create something contrived that we think will look great and be admired or impactful. It is instead, simply and powerfully, to receive the work that comes to us and…

I was so blessed to have the sweetest established artist reach out just to encourage me when I was first starting out selling my paintings, Gwen Duda, and what she said to me has encouraged me so much throughout the years. I hope it can encourage and bring clarity for you in your art journey as well.  The vital instruction, from the culmination of all her decades of making and selling art, was this: “The most important thing — love the art you are doing, do what you love, paint what you love. Create what you love. That will give you what you need to deal with everything else.”  What…