New Goals + Winter Months = "Outside the Box" Creativity

During the winter months, Asheville's River Arts District turns into a ghost town, but I've found the winter months to be an awesome time to think, dream, imagine and plan new work. When it's slow and I have time to catch my breath a bit, that's when I start thinking outside the box. Boredom is something I dreaded as a kid, but now as a full time artist, I’ve recognized boredom is kind of a gift to creativity. Down time is when my creative brain really starts firing and I begin thinking things like “I wonder how I can do THAT” or “What would happen if I tried THIS?” There’s only one way to find out (and then boredom ends, having done it’s job).

Over the years, I've primarily focused on landscapes, but I've had time to develop some really interesting directions as far as abstract pieces go. Ideally, I would like to have a better balance between the two styles (landscapes / abstracts) because they require such a different creative approach, and that keeps life interesting!

And, in addition to working on paintings for my studio in Asheville, I'm also creating several new landscape pieces for Mountain Nest Gallery in Black Mountain, NC and several new abstracts for Revealed Gallery in Charleston, SC. I’m so grateful for how these galleries have exposed more people to my work than otherwise possible with my studio in Asheville.

Oh, also (on a more business note)…I’ve begun to offer payment plans for people who want to purchase my work. Here’s how it works…If you purchase a completed piece or commission a custom piece from me, you can take up to nine months to pay for it at no interest. When the last payment is made, I ship the painting to you (and...shipping costs are on me).  

So, 2024 is shaping out to be a really fun (and hopefully) challenging year, as I continue to develop this technique of mine and see where it goes and what it becomes, and that is incredibly exciting for me. 

An Artist in Italy (Part 3)

Alberobello, Italy

I’ve mentioned that one of the things I learned from my time in Italy last September was to look for the most popular places (most likely to be overrun with tourists) and NOT go there. For the most part, that was the rule. But…with every rule, you can make exceptions. We just really tried to make those exceptions with some wisdom. Sometimes, that worked. Like…Alberobello.

“…with every rule, you can make exceptions…”

Alberobello is an amazingly weird little town in Puglia (the heel of the boot of Italy). It’s filled with all these little beehive houses called “Trulli”. And let’s please get it right…when speaking of one of these, it’s “a TRULLO” and when you’re speaking of many, THEY are “TRULLI.” So the town is filled with trulli. They’re everywhere. Many of them have been converted to shops. We stayed in an Airbnb about five kilometers outside of town and IT was a trullo. THEY ARE COOL. The artist in me was so excited seeing these odd, old little stone structures.

“Gosh,” you say, “If I were visiting Puglia, I’d want to see Alberobello!”. Yes, you would and you should. You and thousands of other tourists. Thousands. But like I said previously, this was an exception worth making. I knew this awesome little town was super popular with tourists. So we stayed five kilometers away just outside of another little town called “Locorotondo”. IT was amazing…winding, narrow little streets and all the homes inside the ancient city walls were whitewashed. It was beautiful. AND see, here’s the thing…being so close to Alberobello was awesome for Locorotondo because all the international tourists filled Alberobello and left Locorotondo to Italian tourists (and Joy and I). See how this strategy works???

Locorotondo, Italy

So one thing that I learned in Puglia turned out to be really important to file away in the “never forget this” folder in my brain. Here’s the rule: Never, ever eat a melon without first washing it. I had no idea you were supposed to wash a freaking melon before cutting into it but that’s what happened. It was absolutely wonderful — one of the sweetest melons I’ve ever eaten. And…apparently was covered with salmonella. This kind of wrecked the next day, and the next, and the next. I’d read that usually, symptoms resolve themselves for most people after five days. Well, seven days later I was on the verge of going septic. I don’t ever remember feeling this horrible. Thankfully, I got onto a regimen of Cipro and within about twelve hours, I was feeling mostly normal. We went on to visit Pompeii and then had the last two wonderful days in Rome. I loved Rome. What a charming and beautiful city. But, that two day visit to Rome changed the next couple months of my life. See, after two years of being careful to wear masks in crowded public places (you know where this is going now, right?), and since everyone around us in the trains and buses weren’t wearing masks, all signs were that COVID was a thing of the past. YAY! I was lured into blissful complacency. Two days after arriving back home, both Joy and I tested positive for COVID and folks, it was NOT like a bad cold. Now (two months later), I am finally feeling normal.

“Never, ever eat a melon without first washing it.”

So I can’t wait to go back to Italy. I’ll be avoiding the overly touristy areas, washing melons (washing EVERYTHING I EAT), bringing a mask and eating the most amazing pasta anywhere on earth. Io amo l'Italia!

In my next post, I’ll share three of the paintings I’ve completed now, based on photos I took on this trip. I’m sure there are a lot more painting possibilities amongst my photos but they’re a good start.