If I had to choose a new medium to work in, it would be glass. When I was in art school, I was a photography major. One day I was talking with a glass major, and he said there was a similarity between photography and glass. To me, they seemed as different as could be. What he meant was that the art we produced wasn’t manipulated directly by our hands.

Glass blowing takes a long time to learn. After working at it for four or six years, you might be considered a good beginner.

I don’t have the time or the resources to learn glass blowing, but it fascinates me.

I will stick with pottery and painting.

I do not need to get my creative juices flowing. If anything, it would be helpful to know how to turn them off at times, or at least slow them down.

No matter how tired I am, when I climb into bed at night, the inactivity of my body seems to turn up the activity of my brain. Maybe the brainwaves are the same, but the hands are no longer responding, so it only seems more intense.

Art is an important way for me to process my life. Not only what is happening today, but all of the yesterdays as well.

I love producing art, and it is deeply meaningful for me when someone responds to something I have produced. I am known as an artist. Still, my art is not my greatest accomplishment. Art is self serving… self informing… self enriching. This is not a bad thing. It may hold benefits for others around me.

My greatest accomplishment in life has been assembling my family. My family was assembled the way a magnet assembles metal shavings from a workbench. We were drawn together. Disparate parts with diverse histories were drawn to each other by an invisible pull. It took some work, but the work is nothing without the attraction.

That’s how I want to be remembered. As a family man, who happened to tell his stories visually. Because if I can tell my story, you can tell your story… or maybe through hearing my story, you can realize you have room in your life for someone else who needs a home.

I don’t know why I was so fortunate to get the parents that I got. I was truly lucky, and it was due to no merit of my own. Not everyone gets that chance in life. I want to pay it forward. Even as a child, I looked forward to being a father someday. Adopting teens has given my life new meaning. To see them grow and thrive in the security of a loving family is the most important thing I have done in my life, and it is what I plan to do for the rest of my life.