For as long as I can remember I am an artist, confident making some great work. I have always wanted to extend this fame but have yet to be discovered. I'm not waiting anymore. I am instead proclaiming, maybe to a fault. But you only live once and I am about to turn 50 so why not just let go. This is the story of my life. Just let go. It will probably be the last thing I hear.

While in Israel, painting. I was not making much progress so I enlisted a local talent. Begged is more like it. His name is Efrony Catriel and he is one of the masters of our time. By the forth day of my visit with my painting on his easel and him behind me raising his voice... Steve, Let go... Just let the paint drip.

You can see the piece on my web site under collections - Israel.

Heard any stories like this? What is success? What are your goals? I have been surrounded by severely talented people my whole life. What make them so talented. In most cases it has been torture. Not torture in the sense of Halloween but some driving force that makes you skip meals and miss events because you a driven by something deep inside. You may have heard of awakening a spirit, its the same thing.

I know of hundreds of other talented people that are in the same boat. The few I know that are professional have marginal economic success and a very few and major success. And its never how you expect it.

I have given relentlessly on a daily basis. Reading everything I can, enjoying old movies, the library, poetry, plays, dance, music, comedy. I feel if the subject is within the humanities it belongs on my list of things to do. Going to every museum arriving before they open and leaving when they close looking closely, very closely, drawing and dreaming in color. Drawing, Creating earning a degree in Fine Art and feeling the sense of urgency as every time I hold a brush with paint I feel the tug of mortality.

I paint everyday and wonder about it when I am not. I figured at some point it would all connect but the elusive success seems out of reach. Funny thing is this a good thing as it gives me goals since nothing is completed. Not meaning individual tasks but... the big picture. It's good to continually have a things to do, creative sparks to follow.

This elusive success is not to say the effort has been fruitless, on the contrary, I have been enriched hundreds of times over by my quest and besides today I proclaim "I have made it" My mind is expansive and filled with images. My own work continues to grow and change. My compositions are thoughtful and provoking. My craftsmanship is exquisite and tortured a perfect combination. As a good craftsman knows every tiny nuance makes a difference it is easy to see how to make something just a little better.

Then there is the whole discussion of technology and how things are changing. How can anyone keep up? Each program requires hours of concentration. We make choices, tradeoffs, and compromises. I follow and I lead rarely, but mostly I follow. Creativity can only go so far before you reach familiar classic problems. For a trained artist that is a good thing as familiarity brings a deep grounding to allow you to know when you are breaking new ground or when you are simply repeating the past. Each of us must choose a niche, as the depth of our combined experience is vast. I guess that is also good thing since life should be full of wonderment… I just wish it could be easy no on second thought no it should not be too easy.

That's the epiphany... Every example of genius and success that I see is difficult. Some of the biggest successes are gamblers and of course they are the biggest losers as well but I am not talking about poker and such but that risk/reward lies at the heart of all business. That is why this treatise applies to any Business not just the Business of Art. The difference is that sense of satisfaction the completeness of doing something with your own hands that is deeply appreciated. I am sure businessman would disagree as they see the result is measured in dollars. There is no easy road nor should we even imagine it should be easy. Well maybe we can imagine there is no hurt in dreaming. I don’t have to look to far to stumble upon a friend from China whom would be dirt poor if they did not do everything within there limited means to fight to the top of the educational chain. Or my friend from the city who still has marks on his body from the fighting in the streets. What possessed him to study harder then anyone and continue his education? Get off the street! The stories are endless and they are particularly poignant when in discussion surrounding talented people.

I love these stories. I love the antidotes and the colloquialisms surrounding each of us. I almost want to only travel in circles of English speaking people only so I can better understand the inflections of their voices. Not that I don’t like other languages or everything that is exotic but I am just on a quest and lack ability on those other languages. I lack many other abilities as well. I can’t spell… that is for sure and I can’t do Physics very well or Economics either but somehow I managed to ace Calculus and somehow I manage to hear things in my head but have great difficulty expressing them or communicating them on the level that I want to share. The fact is that beauty and goodness do not translate directly but only through actions and the transmission of those feelings can easily be interfered with noise on many levels. Especially in the work environment where multiple people and teams interact to achieve goals beyond any individual. But that is also the point when working in a team as a member your derive a certain amount of appreciation of the team but what about yourself. Are you an individual or just a number. Just anyone. Just following, someone else’s vision. Even within this harsh creative environment a few break loose.

I don’t think there are any clear answers. Many questions, riddles, puzzles, road kill and at some point we arrive amazed. An engineer friend of mine once sent me text a message from 30,000 feet in an airplane. It wasn’t the message that elated him it was the technology. This same person, someone I truly admire helped me see the extreme beauty of concrete telephone poles not only have they changed the landscape of our daily lives becoming ubiquitous, blending in, in our view but the consistency of the product allows them to be a commodity and allows the rest of our limited sciences especially the limits surrounding delivery, placement, installation, loading to work most efficiently.

Maybe I do know a thing of two about economics on a gut level. And maybe that is one of the secrets to success, economic success that is. Continuity and Price. I think talent separates you and defines you and in the end the curse of talent takes you to place that you never expected.

The curse I speak of is the overwhelming desire and commitment to do something that will have lasting value. Something that is so persuasive that food does not matter. That place where the result is a dream come true and how you get to the dream becomes lost in the pain of the past replaced with wonderment. The daily effort of lifting and the back breaking work replaced by the result shadowed by the stone cutter the feels no access to the final building.

Building a bridge of a dam a building or a business or a painting of exquisite appreciation. All of the above require groups, teams and process. Accept painting. Painting frees the mind and body to active something great. Painting is the one place for the individual to seek deeply while shedding the cost required of the larger causes. There are few other activities that give you this freedom. Certain types of programming may fit this genre. Playing video games could also be considered of a singular force. Maybe this is a fallacy because success on an economic level requires a market and traders and or a patron and agent.

If you have a story to share about you sacrifice to become great at something we want to hear it. Please comment and tell your friends. There will be an award when we figure out what makes sense. What does make sense?

More like this at www.shoosty.com www.shoostystudio.littleoak.net

Tags: Talent, fine art

Spent Fuel

Spent-Fuel, like an archeological dig, the found creature is recreated by the debris of its life. The same is true for my art work, a lifetime is simply spent-fuel.


“Was it well spent?” you might ask. For me the creation of art is what drives me. I use the term art in the broad sense. When doing anything with an extra measure of craftsmanship the result is greater then the task, its called a feedback loop. This Introspetion over time creates better results and some might say the reason for the industrial revolution. The trouble is you can apply this to machines of death as well and health so there needs to be a moral compass attached to the result. I don’t think anyone can avoid these questions consciously, subconsciously, or even unknowingly there is a purpose that may not be immediately evident. For me I feel I am educating those around me about the arts as well as maintaining my focus on things that most interest me, the visual field of perception filtered through the camera of my mind. Was it well spent? So far definitely!

The Spent Fuel then becomes a measuring stick of a higher functioning consciousness. It is deeply personal and depends on my ability to “SEE” expressing the result in at best a strange mirror, a looking glass into new worlds. I do this over and over again. Sometimes I arrive at a new creative result and the feeling is exhilarating, an awakening. And the more I reach the level of arriving at something new the more it compels me to continue. If, as an artist, you simply reproduce what you see then you have gained little. It is only in the twists, the interpretations, that art matters. The good news is to all those aspiring artists “There is no way to escape interpretation in art. Whatever you create will be altered by your perception and ability to render”. So it is only a matter of degrees, which can be revealed by careful study and exploration. The best way begin this discovery is through fuel... good food, good environment, good materials, good music, good friends, all things that any good society would want to encourage. Art is the thermometer of mankind.

Notice carefully how I only use the term good because great is the enemy of good. It sounds weird but if you reach too high on your first throw in baseball you will throw your arm out. You need to find a starting place and then move out from there. When you can’t find a starting place I call it “thrashing”. This is when you need to do something else for a while. For me to clear my head I like to clean up the studio, exercise, and just escape into a book or task. but I have seen others thrash and have helped them by just returning to basics. Basic composition applies to every subject. Simple steps always result in action beginning and the beginning of action is the start of the end of thrashing, or getting nothing done.

If I had to choose one word to describe reason for my my efforts it would be trying to have a conversation on a level that I want to listen, at level that is not mundane but that engages me fully on many levels, that gives me a chance to have conversations with the universe, awakening and remaining on that level for long periods of time. The closest word I can evoke is HUMOR. You might find this strange but to me I can group conversations on transcendence, normal communication, playfulness, even sarcasm into a word that allows me to enjoy what I am doing without getting too caught up in the details. What I found is that like my painting humor cuts through the chatter, the mundane and the road blocks.

Let’s take a ride. I like to imagine I am riding a light wave of consciousness, surfing for nuggets of enlightenment, picking up pieces along the way which become part of my palette. Gathering souls, ideas, objects, methods all to later use in compositions. Sketches in my mind. Gathering fuel only to spend it later.

Too bad I have a problem. When riding this imagined lightwave I feel confident that I am aiming in the right direction but I have difficulty tuning into the last mile. It is kind of like wearing glasses. When I don’t wear them everything is out of focus. This is where I value my community and support systems the most and I don’t think I am alone in this at all. For instance I could never have received an “A” in Calculus on my own. It took years of teachers, homework and a study mate. And I doubt my study mate would have received an “A” without my assistance. Or more recently taking an an audio book lecture on Dantes’ Comedia. I never thought I would ever understand this venerable poem. I always heard about the rings of hell as described by Dante but never understood the great meanings of the entire Comedia. It’s just like the lecturer says at the end “Now you are ready to read the Comedia.” It is still impossible to read but at least I have a much clearer understanding. I think what i am trying to say is to be thankful for our modern institutions as well as out ancient rituals. they deserve our homage. Without them we would be far less as individuals.

My favorite story in this genre is an important one to me. I went to Israel on a Florida Economic Development trip. I was surrounded by educators, politicians and a few businessmen like myself (an under cover artist). While there we took a bus trip and visited at least 10 churches. I was getting bored and tired and saturated so I stepped away from the group. Now prior to the bus stopping one of the fellows was reading a bible verse. “Blessed are the Peace keepers for they shall be called the children of G-D”, mind you I am not a bible person so I had no reason to question what I heard. Meanwhile I stumbled out of the bus and went my own way. Now the whole trip I was looking for something to make me feel like I was in a special place. Maybe where I could find a light that reached into outer space and led me to all the answers in the universe. But I knew that was not likely. Meanwhile I stumbled around and found myself surrounded by what I thought were tourists with a guide and stepped back to keep my distance but I watched and listened and the fellow, the guide said “and this is the ancient such and such, that that is the ancient xyz, and welcome to Israel and your 6 month stay as UN Peace Keepers”. I got goose bumps. In telling this story I learned only recently the line goes “Blessed are the peace makers...” which only makes the whole story a little better. Proof of the value of institutions.

Painting is the most liberating of the arts. With painting you can create ideas with little to no physical cost. The closest thing is to this is writing (like science fiction writing where the ideas can flow without the associated engineering). Painting is also painstakingly slow. When I get into the groove I intentionally slow down my thinking to match the motion. By taking my time each stoke becomes an echo of life. This repetition can become hypnotic and keeps me grounded to earth a good place to be. This connection does not happen overnight. Each artist is different. You would think that if this is true it would apply to all artists and craftsman but alas these conversations are hard to arrive at and have taken a lifetime of practice I guess not unlike transcendental meditation or any exercise that helps you control your mind and ultimately your destiny, spent fuel. I best suggestion is look deeply into yourself and find a guide or many guides that you can learn from. For some people this awakening happens early in life. I know of few of those people, kindred souls.

I embrace specialization. That sounds weird. But I like to be grounded so thinking about the beginning, cave man, you can imagine that to create an artist , or a writer, or a scientist you have to embrace specialization. Fast forward to the 20th century and it makes more sense. Without our industrial revolution followed by our information revolution we would have far less artists and craftsman, engineers, doctors, solutions. Accepting the gifts of the year 2007 allows me to leverage my talent. Once again all good things for a society. Keep smiling and embrace specialization.

I like to equate what I do to the ancient guilds many years ago. The guilds created a system to learn and teach within an organized structure. The goal was and still is the advancement of humanity. The result is a symphony. The guild which handles waste management is just as critical as the one that gathers fish. We need each of these and many more to raise the largest population ever on Earth and more importantly educate them especially in the arts because it is the arts that make life enjoyable, not just fostering tolerance but yelling it. The greatest achievements of mankind are the arts its natural just like the greatest achievement of a clam is a pearl. The keystone to this thinking is education for all, education to be continuous throughout everyone’s lives all the way until the day death and possibly beyond in the form of endowments or grants.

For me the most important thing to do with any child is to first fill there hearts with joy, the arts. They need to be taught to approach education with a heart filled with joy. Once joy is firmly rooted the rest of there lives will be by far better. And conversely the rest of mankind's collective lives. In simpler terms, Attitude is everything… approaching something with joy is a better way of expressing this idea.

I have a routine way to begin my art sessions. To do this I like to start with mundane routines. These get the body flowing. Simple and mindless they clear my head and make it possible to except new ideas. An example would be simply brushing my teeth, painting them with a mint paste. Rhetorically and Symbolically “waking up” as is the rest of the world in synchrony with the sun or another way of saying it as a child becomes mentally aware. All from just brushing ones teeth! Big ideas for simple brushing but I assure you the exercise is a little more sleepy. This daily cleaning ritual is soothing at least until I remember that fateful realization of my run in with modern technology coupled with a birth defect.

Nature decided to withhold most of my permanent teeth. Today if have 13 dental implants and a plastic chin. I am lucky to have teeth at all. The reason is a congenital defect. The permanent teeth just did not grow and push the baby teeth out. The precision and pain to replace them broke me out of an eighteen year slumber called childhood abruptly at a tender age. Most of my teeth were pulled in one narcotic session only to feel the “Holy Shit” a few hours later when I realized they were gone as was the medication. The process was a rude slap in the face as well as a psychic wake up call or more like a hammer to the head. Given time to heal and nurture, coupled with the beauty and confidence of the resultant pearly whites I found myself in a position to start giving something back to the world in appreciation. I choose Fine Art as my medium, drawing, painting and architecture and graduating from the University of Florida, Collage of Fine Arts in 1982.

Drawing is one of my favorite things to do. Not only are the rhythmic movements exciting drawing teaches you to see. Even if you cant draw if just try and take a pencil to paper, look at anything and try and draw it. You will see details you overlooked when simply viewing. Carefully seeing is the most critical part of drawing, a kind of drawing where the marks are less important then the exercise. Seeing with the minds eye is a great achievement. At best it is a continuous connection with history that gives me a sense of place. And since the vocabulary of seeing is a lifelong adventure it is also full of endless fascination and study. I am never bored although I have been known to be impatient at certain times. So as I “spend” fuel and place marks on paper or canvas I am also building objects and thoughts in a reflecting pond called my minds eye. These are things accessible to even a child and should be encouraged.

Let’s let go further a little and see if we can soar. Can you imagine trees talking? What if they talk over a period of months using odors instead of words, using blowing breezes or roots like vines touching. The sentence becomes a month or two long, perhaps a year. Words drag out like perfume. Can you imagine a lifetime from sprout to stout and the transformation along the way? In the end ashes to ashes or possibly a chair or how about a giant mast on a tall ship driving through a stormy sea, or better yet the ships keel carrying mythological, Jason and the Argonauts, “as it (the ship) rolls over the head of Neptune looking up from under the water, Jason escapes with the golden fleece”. The point is we are dealing with creativity through the ages both enabling as in paper from trees and in culmination of the findings of mankind. It’s no wonder I have chosen fine art a my college degree as well as a way of living. Conversations like this can’t be bottled up. They need need wings, they need paper and pencil. They are spent fuel. They are jet fuel.

When I create Art it helps me to exercise my depth of being. This is important for everyone. If you want to be an artist or a writer start drawing today and seek out guides, teachers not just of the specific craft but of the flow, the form, the composition, the poetry. Expose yourself to the gift of experience. Outwardly I function on the day to day plane with simple words or tasks but my imagination is rich and painting, drawing, poetry, talking, food and more are the tools I use to cultivate that which is the richest, my mind.

One trouble is you can’t talk semiotics or metaphysics or transcendence for too long before you get lost in a worm hole. So the conversation has to start more simply. Just breathing, breath, (pause) joy these are the foundations of acceptance, a readiness to learn something new. When connected to a daily routine they help expose the aggravation or inspiration depending on your perspective. The beginning of a Pearl is a gritty grain of sand which the clam finds should be polished to wallow away the time. Why does a clam create a pearl? Immortality? or something more basic, like instinct?

Wrestling with lines becoming composition I aim to catch the wind of inspiration. Mixed with a little bit of color and breath for a brief moment I can touch your heart and the result becomes part of something greater, participating in the echoes of creation, self-realization and wonderment. Without doing his exercises this daily bread would be just bread. As strange as it might sound I feel connected to all the arts & crafts prior to this day. A culmination of my experience whether I imposed my belief or it captured me does not matter. The echos feed me like waves of the sea, over and over again. I sat once in the Dead Sea on a simple folding chair, painting with “salt” watercolors using the available water. When touching my brush to the ancient sea… I felt connected through the ages. Today the spent-fuel, my painting, is luminescent with salt crystals.

Language and Semiotics are a part of this “way” of seeing. Words are another gateway to the superhighway of consciousness. Words can excite the energy surrounding us. Words are mind clay with the gamut of language and the gamut of the visual dimension combined the total scope is increased and magnified.

My art effort is a way to keep the “greater” spiritual conversation front center. The result, spent-fuel, sparks imagination of all ages feeding the effort. I am most pleased when I can have the conversation and someone “gets it”. It is very important to continue those conversations and help as many as I can “get it.

Spinning the poetry, telling tales between self and soul, husband and wife, father and child, citizen and community, state and country, country and country, earth and universe. One verse … Uni-Verse, a vision for all time. I like the idea of that.

I dream and that makes me immortal if sometimes during the day I can place paint on paper, canvas or photoshop. I get hurt like you and realize the frailty of it all. It takes me off the mark. I paint and somehow it touches my sense of mortality. This makes me very aware of time working against me. The time it takes to do this is a constant reminder of the pyramid which each painting represents in the retrospective of my life. Can the result be of timeless value? You decide, enjoy the ride… next stop I will hyperlink you to my gallery. Whoosh!

The sooner you awaken from your daily routine the longer you will be able to spend in that heightened state or even better share this feeling with kids, family and friends. That is my mission; to direct my thoughts and so the result, the debris can sometimes on a good day be a masterwork of art. It’s the spent-fuel of the session where the journey was, the thoughtful path I tried to stay on. Hopefully, given the right light, and the proper diet you can take the energy required to make your own journey where my “spent-fuel” or art-craft becomes a road map more easily followed. Please open the door and enter the worm hole of my imagination and make sure you write your own name on the wall.

Tags: creativity, fine art

Tags: Dallas Museum, fine art

One day we will all become spirit or not. If we allow this idea of spirit to extend then we stumble upon gravity. Is the spirit connected to the earth because of gravity? Or can it fly? does the spirit of the good and bad mingle? Is it one or many or nothing? the electrical impulses that make up my personality is what I am talking about. I guess most of them are directly related to basic skills, Breathing, Walking and such. but there are a few which have time for ideas. And those ideas are universal... meaning they cant be destroyed. so maybe one day we will be free. Truly traveling through space and time unbounded.

So I ask you if we are one day to be free and the universe is a big place maybe we should pick a place so as not to get too far away from each other. At first I thought the local Steak and Shake but that does not give much hope to the future a billion years from now. So maybe it would be better to choose a place that would be easier to find through the millennium. I guess its cold dark and empty but maybe to a soul its like a play ground and who knows being spirit in form may mean that space time travel is a “breeze”. So let’s choose a place so we don’t get lost and lets choose somewhere in outer space so we don’t become too confined to our current world like the milky way. More specifically the center of the Milky Way.

I hope not to see you soon but its nice to have a place in mind ahead of time.

Tags: Milky Way, fine art