I started following my creative urges as though they were paths through the woods. Something appealed to me, and I followed it. I was, and still am often clumsy. On the path, I hit my head on branches or trip over rocks, tree roots, or slight rises or dips in the dirt. Following an artistic impulse doesn’t always lead to the production of a satisfying painting or photograph. Sometimes it clicks, or the potential of an idea seems worth exploring. I don’t make a list of the pros and cons, I just play. Sometimes the play unfolds to reveal more and more potential, and sometimes I just need to clean up the playroom. The play was reward enough. If it turns into something more, that’s a gift. If I am open, and someone else is interested, I can teach what I do. Or what I did. Not to do it exactly the way I do, but to find the paths on your road of life. The paths that lead inward. It’s safe inside, even if there were things that frightened or hurt you. You can free those locked away memories, celebrate them or forgive them, and when you look outward, you can enjoy the unobstructed view. This is what inspires me. The view. I want to share it, so I try my best to copy it down. It is framed by all of my stored memories. It is more than what it is. What you see will be surrounded, and perhaps obstructed by those records that are unique to you. As artists, this is what we do. It is who we are. If I try to teach you something, you will be teaching me the whole time, and you might not even be aware of it. My creative zone crouches inside me, hoping for a chance to spring into action. Or maybe it’s a pool. A still, reflective pool that has settled in my deepest part, waiting to splash to life when I jump into it or dip my brush into it. All I have to do is pick up a paintbrush. It’s always there.

When I sit down to write, I don’t always have a plan in mind for what I want to say. I just start writing. I might use a prompt, or some thought that’s swimming in my brain, but then one word follows another. I follow that path of words the way I follow a path of brushstrokes on a canvas, and I see where it takes me. Writing and painting are very similar for me. They come from the same place, it’s just the medium that is different.

I store small paintings in baskets, and sometimes I look through them and see something I hadn’t noticed before. Sometimes I see what direction a quick sketch wants to take. I store small writings on my computer or on my blog, and later I read it. That thoughtful part of me can speak to a troubled part of me, caught up in details of a busy or frustrating day. I trust the source, since I scooped those words, those thoughts out of myself. This is what I mean when I say writing and painting are like meditation.

It’s also why I keep saying that I paint and I write for myself. I have no agenda. No ulterior motive. I can love myself and validate myself without needing anyone else’s approval or agreement. But what a treat it is when someone else reads my words and relates to it so strongly that they want to contact me. In the same way, people encounter my paintings out in the world and send me messages, if they can find me. I’ve become rather untrusting. I feel unsafe in the world. Kindred spirits may have to be persistent in locating me, but it happens from time to time, and that can be wonderful.

As a preschooler, I liked to draw. My mother would give me paper and crayons, and I would make pictures. I didn’t do it because I thought I was creative. It wasn’t because I had discovered some talent in me. I just liked doing it. I may have done it a lot, maybe not as much as I think I did. That doesn’t matter. I enjoyed it, and kept doing it, either a little or a lot, year after year. By the time I was a teenager, I’d put a lot of miles on the crayons, and my ability to draw was agreed upon by people around me. I could draw a Coke bottle or an air conditioner. I also drew from my imagination. I drew scenes of people, and memories with my friends. Maybe that was a seed of telling my personal stories, but I didn’t think of it that way. It was many years before I tried to tell my own story through art. Now, I’m inspired by everything around me, and I’m still digging for the images inside me. I don’t think I chose my medium. It wasn’t a moment of decision, anyway. I tried a lot of different art supplies throughout my life. I was introduced to some in art school. I may have rejected, or set aside a lot of them to end up with what I use now. I paint primarily in acrylic. I draw primarily with fine tipped black pens. There are a lot of mark making tools in my art box, so a lot of different pencils, pastels and markers make their way in or under the paint. They all bring a little something different into the art. It’s easy for me to lay down lines or colors. If I struggle, it’s because of my expectations. All paintings go through ugly phases. That’s normal and necessary. When I’m really struggling, it’s best to put that one aside for a while, or just look at it without a paintbrush in my hand. The answer is usually easy when my mind is relaxed. I can leave it, alter it or obliterate it. There’s something that kicks in when I paint. It’s the joy of mixing and laying down color. I feel free when I paint. I do it for me. For my own enjoyment. It’s nice to find myself with a satisfying piece at the end, but that can’t be my goal. Thinking that way leads to disaster. So on a good day, I feel relaxed. I feel like myself. I feel interested. Those feelings underlie the swarm of thoughts that swim by. They appear from somewhere inside me. Some float right up through my consciousness like bubbles that started from somewhere in the depths, and keep rising beyond me. Others stay for a while. Some sliver of experience that I was unaware of. Some nearly forgotten detail that wants to be seen, and doesn’t go away until it’s been observed and validated. When I create, sometimes I feel spiritual. Holy. I don’t always like the end result of my creative process. It’s probably because I wasn’t at the end yet.

As an artist, I’m always thinking about what I will create next. Those blank canvases don’t fill themselves. I have themes that I return to again and again. At times they begin to feel tired… overdone. Yet each time I paint a tree, it grows differently out the tip of my brush. I couldn’t paint the same thing twice if I tried. A forest of fir trees is not redundant. A stand of white pines isn’t tedious with its repetition. A crowd of people is not made up of clones.

Still. Sometimes I paint fish into the branches. No two fish are the same. The message is still fresh for me. If I paint one picture of fish swimming amongst the boughs, one person can have it and hang it on their wall. If I do it several times, several people can have one. 

You don’t have to have one. You don’t have to like them. 

It might interest you to know that a fish in a tree is a symbol for dyslexia.

You might find that you have risen above the expectations anyone had had for you. 

You might find yourself feeling out of place at times. 

These are all true of me, so I express these experiences and more in my art. 

Is it about something?  Or does it exist entirely on its own?

When I don’t know what to say, I might just apply paint that bursts forth refusing to commit to any representational object or being. It escapes as paint, laughing from the surface on my easel. It laughs at me, and after catching its breath, says “look what you’ve done!  I don’t look like a tree, or a fish!  I’m paint!  I’m just a color, just a shape!”

Its friend hears the declaration, and follows out the same way… down my arm, through my fingers, and out the end of the brush. 

“There you are!” The first one says, “Come lay by me!”

Everyone is free, the brushstroke and the artist. 

In the end, they tell me something. They bring with them some forgotten story, some unintentional detail that darted too close to the current, and came out. Came out where I could see it, and then I get to laugh at them… or with them. 

This impulsive action is comfortable for me. I see beauty, or at least interest, all around me, often where I least expect it. 

Lately, I’ve been photographing garbage. Litter. These were items that served a purpose. Someone manufactured them for a reason. Someone else agreed with the reason enough to purchase the item. When it was no longer of use, it found its way to the side of the curb. By the time I noticed it, its edges were buried by dirt or frost, its surface had taken on the texture of asphalt. These multimedia pieces tell me stories, or sing in unison with the stories already inside me. I document them in photographs and realize that the whole world is an art gallery if we only look. If we only see. 

I laugh again because the stories are often funny. The art form is sad. 

I will take a bag to the street and take the show down, realizing that another exhibition will soon take its place. 

For me, creativity is just being interested in something, and then responding to it. I do it in paintings, drawings and photographs, but that’s after I’ve been inspired. Inspiration comes from outside of me. It enters my brain through one or more of my senses. Then it is no longer outside. It’s gotten in.  My neurons devour it, or at least respond to it. They move the pieces around, figuring out what they can do with it. My job is just to be open, and put myself out where I can see it in the first place. My brain is dissecting it before I’m conscious of it. 

I don’t try to be creative. When I do try to conjure some creative output, I find myself frustrated or disappointed. 

It’s like a seed that is planted when I see. It begins to grow long before it pokes its head out where I am aware of it. 

I’ve always done this. The more I do it, the less panic I feel. With practice I guess I get better at responding. 

I can only catch the fish that are in the water. I have to relax. The little ideas of today may be bait for the deeper waters of tomorrow. 

I’m my own inspiration and obstacle. My expectations both spur me on and get in my way. All I have is this moment to sit and rest, and allow the visions to loosen and flow. 

Over the past several months, I’ve taken a lot of pictures and videos of trains.  I used to own a Great Northern Railway caboose.  I ran a coffee shop and art gallery out of it.

I’m really not all that interested in trains!  I like them.  We didn’t have them where I used to live, and now I can hear them from my bedroom window.

I enjoy the hunt.  The trains are unpredictable here because they are not passenger trains.  You never know when they will pass by.  So I’ve kept an eye on the signals.

One day, a railway employee stopped by while I was eyeing a flashing yellow light.  He asked a few times whether I was alright.  I didn’t understand.  I thought maybe he didn’t want me taking pictures of trains.

The other day, I was out near the tracks.  It was cold out. Cars were passing, and I noticed one car going really slow over the tracks.  I made eye contact with the woman driving.  She did a double take at me and went on her way.  A little while later, before the train came by, a police officer pulled up behind me.  I’d gotten back into my car because of the cold wind.  He also asked whether I was alright.

I told him I was fine, but he needed reassurance.

“I like trains,” I said.  “I take pictures of them.”

He asked about my camera, and I showed him my GoPro.

He told me that someone had called in about me because she was concerned.

“Concerned about what?” I asked.

“Concerned that you might throw yourself in front of a train.”

I was shocked.

He also asked to see my license, since he was responding to a call.

I’m not depressed.  Certainly not suicidal.

I don’t cross the guard rails.  I don’t stand on the tracks, or even on the railway property.  I park my car out of the way of traffic.  I usually stand on a snowmobile trail.

Where I used to live, I took pictures of boats.  We don’t have them here.  As I said, we didn’t have trains there.

Taking pictures of trains is fun for me.  It’s interesting, and free.  I’ve found it to be a cool thing about my new home.

During the summer, I take videos when I go bike riding.  I clip the camera onto my helmet.  I don’t ride my bike in the winter.

So that’s it.  That’s why I post so many pictures of trains.  There are large communities of people who do the same thing, and post them to instagram.  It’s not just me.  No one has to worry about me.  No one has to call the cops.  I’m fine.  I’m happy.  I’m well.  Please just let me enjoy my hobbies even if you don’t love to do the same thing as me.

The railway employee who checked on me just told me to be safe.  I asked the police officer if there was something wrong with what I was doing.  He said “No, it’s fine, just as long as you are alright.”

My brother suggested maybe the person who called 911 had lost a loved one who jumped in front of a train.  I wonder if she calls the police whenever she sees someone near a train track.

I remember a time when I used to write about art every day. My creative process and philosophy was the thing that kept me grounded, and in touch with my inner self. 

The words just seemed to flow out of me effortlessly. I pictured the colors lined up in my arm, just waiting to trickle through my hand and out my fingertips onto the canvas. 

Within this seemingly endless supply of ideas, I knew that I would have to take time to do other things, too. I had to live things outside of my studio so that I would have something to say. 

It kept me from being concerned about the days or weeks when I was not painting. 

I also believed, and still believe, that I didn’t need to strive or force the inspiration to come. If I just lived my life, and picked up a paintbrush during that living, my next big thing would come. It would show itself to me. This usually happened after the thing had already appeared. I was playing, and enjoying whatever interested me. Not contrived, not based on what I thought anyone else would like. I’d discover a niche that was true to me. 

When I moved to the Iron Range, I tried to think of some local perspective I could present from a newcomer’s viewpoint. 

Chestnut Street appealed to me, and I tried to think of a new angle to paint it from. 

What happened naturally, without ever trying, was midnight walks, photographing an abandoned city in black and white. You see, I had lost my cat. I’d go out late at night calling for her in those early days. She was shy and frightened, and I knew I’d never find her in the daylight. 

The photos seem sad. The urban decay mirrored my feeling of emptiness at losing my love. 

I never found her. 

Nine months later, I’m still photographing the city at night, and accepting that she is gone. 

From my new home, I can hear the sound of trains in the distance. Even without my hearing aids, I can hear them through the open window in the summer. 

I asked my art group where they passed, and began photographing them, too. 

I used to own a railway caboose, so my interest in trains goes back decades. 

In the town where I used to live, I’d chase down the Hjørdis, a local sailing ship, photographing her as she sailed the Great Lake, and especially when she passed by our lighthouse, going in or out of the harbor. Now I try to catch the trains in a similar way. They are not passenger trains, so there isn’t a set schedule. That hunt only adds to the excitement, and makes each meeting more special. I keep a list of the engine numbers I encounter, and would like to express the trains in paint. 

My ongoing science fiction serial has been my main focus lately, and once again, I had that feeling that the ideas and words were endless. 

My creative interests take turns. 

My lifelong practice of painting will step aside to make way for my determination to create pottery, or to bare my soul through the past fifty years of writing. 

The paints are calling to me now. 

My name is Timo, and I am descended from Sámi people in Lappi, Finland. I live in Finntown.

I attended Art School at the College For Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan.