Listening to a Friend, and Listening to Myself

I made a 2025 bingo card, and for some reason I added “start a blog on my website” as one of my items. I didn’t know exactly what I would write, but when I told my friend Josh about it over a long distance phone call (okay maybe Portland isn’t THAT far, but it feels far!) he told me I should just write from the heart. To make it less about my business and more about what it is like to be an artist. So, here we are. Following a good friend’s good advice.

I didn’t even know why I selected the image above until I started typing this sentence. Being an artist is so much about intuitive decision making. Doing what feels correct and then sorting out the meaning later. I’d say for anyone who wants to be more creative, your enemy is overthinking, overplanning, and over-researching. As I type this I also accuse myself, because I’ve been doing a whole lot of planning lately and not a whole lot of painting. If it is helpful, time yourself. For every hour you spend thinking and planning and researching, spend an hour actually DOING IT. Ooof, I owe myself a lot of doing.

So what’s that got to do with these photos? In short, went on a hike (which was more than I bargained for) and ended up with this amazing view. Snapped a few shots because, WOW. Then the next day when I needed to do a small painting for a show I remembered that I had these amazing photos to work from. They were even well suited for my color of the year, which is a vibrant atmospheric blue. I ended up doing an incredible painting that I am tempted to keep, it feels like one of those paintings that marks a shift in artistic career/ style. Alas, off to the show it goes. I’ll probably do another using the same reference material!

Because it wouldn’t be fair to not show the painting, here it is below.

Cheers to the first month of 2025, it was pretty good! I’m hoping I can remember January’s lesson of planning a little less, trusting a little more, and doing a LOT more.