Hello! Let me introduce myself...

I can remember the exact moment I decided to be a painter.  I was 13 years old and I was watching the movie Backbeat about Stuart Sutcliffe, an early member of the Beatles who left to pursue painting instead.  There is a scene in the movie of Stuart painting on a huge canvas. As I was watching it something clicked inside me.  I wanted to do that so badly. For the next few years art was everything to me.  I painted all the time, took as many art classes as I could, and dreamed of being a professional artist. 

Stuart Sutcliffe: Untitled, 1961-62 (Oil on canvas, The Stuart Sutcliffe Estate)

But you know how it is with your passions as a teenager… they change.  I got more into academics, particularly history. And since then, those loves have been fighting for dominance in my life.  I briefly considered being an art teacher in college but ultimately settled on teaching history.  A few years later, I considered leaving teaching and going to art school.  But I loved my job too much. 

For the next decade art was relegated to fleeting dabbles here and there as I poured myself into my career with a lot of success and fulfillment.  I told myself that I would come back to it when I retired.  But it seeped back in, little by little. About a year ago I decided that it was time to let the flood gates open. 

So now it's time for art.  At first, I did pen and watercolor sketches.  But my heart called out for oil paints; for larger surfaces and ambitious projects.  Thirty years may have passed, but that love of the paintbrush I first discovered watching Backbeat was still there. I hadn’t done an oil painting in years and the first attempt was very rusty.  The second wasn’t quite as bad.  The third felt pretty good.  The fourth seemed like a masterpiece.  The fifth felt like garbage.  

 Luckily for me, I came across an artist on the Mastrius YouTube chanel talking about her journey from long-time amateur to professional.  She said that for the first few years when deciding to seriously pursue art you need to paint a lot.  A whole lot.  Paint and paint and paint and you will find what it is you should be painting and how to paint it.  So that became my plan.  

Now here I am, one year later, having painted as much as I could for a year.  And I am happy to report that things have improved. For one, I’m more confident when I stand in front of my easel.  And two, I am starting to identify my style and a cohesion across the work.  I get a little thrill now when I see several of my paintings together. I’m like “Hey, that’s me!”  

Of course, there are plenty of pits that I routinely fall into, like a lot of self-doubt.  And I assume I will continue to fall into them.  But that’s where this blog comes in.  I’m here to chronicle and learn from this journey.  Early on in my teaching career I used a blog to reflect and learn from what was happening in my classroom.  Now, I’m doing the same thing for the art. At 42 I’m excited to start building again, to push myself and explore what I have to give the world.  

I hope you’ll stick around for the journey. And I hope you’ll consider what journies you still have in you.