Thanks to Emily Gilbertson at the Milton High School Art Department who invited me to be their Visiting Artist. I had a blast!! I shared my path to becoming an artist and showed the many developmental stages, tracing my history from early drawings to my current work.

Such a beautiful day! Yesterday thunderstorms blew through not 5 seconds after I finished mowing the lawn! And today, luscious green carpets, happy animals, and plenty of sunshine. Value the moment around you. I hope you can stop for 5 minutes just to soak up your environment!

Looking West

Good Morning

Intrology is a fabricated word. I just made it up. It means, “the study of introspection.” I am thus asking a question of myself — since nobody else works with me in this studio.

I’ve been reading a lot about how to market my artwork. I’ve read discussions and posts by others who talk about how to increase traffic to your site. And a response that really makes sense to me is that volume does not equal sales. As was said, I’d rather have a conversation with my collectors than simply yell at them as they walk by. You can have thousands of unique visitors and still have no sales to show for it.

The most important thing I’ve gotten out of my research thus far is that unless I am able to connect with collectors (or soon to be collectors) then my efforts are futile on two levels. One, it is a hollow existence to view collectors merely as cash cows for me to milk. And two, without a better connection with collectors, there will be no cash!

That leads me to take a more critical look at my purpose in creating art. Of course I love to paint and communicate my unique perspective of reality — sharing what I believe to be valuable emotional insight with others. But the other side of the artists coin is the very large fact that marketing is as important, if not more so, than the artwork itself when it comes to making a living. Because without getting someone to look at the work, there will be no success as an artist. Success as defined by me being sales of the work. If one chooses simply to create work in a back room and never show it, more power to them. But for me, that just ain’t enough.

And so I come to you, dear collector, with hat-in-hand, in order to have a “dialog” with you. That is, with to see you as you are — real people with real feelings and flesh and blood and hopes and dreams.

I must apologize for ignoring you for so long. It’s easy to do when working all the time alone. Let’s get together. I want to know how I can improve your life with my talents. Allow me to serve you.