Back in September, I started working on this 48×36 canvas (You can see the original post dated October 7, 2020). I’ve spent a lot of time with it. It hangs over my bed. If you read my blog posts, you’ll know that I talk about “meandering through the brushstrokes”. Certain passages get too precious to me, even if they are in a problem area. So I had to come to terms with sacrificing some details I liked in order to gain a satisfying painting. And that is how this feels to me now.

I don’t doubt that some of you will shake your heads at this. My brother once looked at some abstract paintings here at my home and immediately announced that they were of “nothing”. That’s fine. That is where that conversation ended. I can assure you that for me, these paintings are not of nothing. In fact, the longer I look at them, the more they reveal.

Of course I identify with my creative product. It came out of me. It is my expression. Still, it might be more accurate to say that my creative product identifies me… the way fingerprints can identify a person that was in a particular place or touched a particular object. My paintings are marks I leave behind me as I pass through the world. My father found a drawing of mine from the 1970’s and used it as his Christmas greeting this past December. I drew that in Africa. A few years ago, a friend sent me a picture I drew for her in the 1980’s.

So you see? It’s true.

They both held onto the type of drawings that I never kept for myself. And I drew all the time, so I don’t know how many still exist.

That is the impact I hope to have. That people will value what I’ve done enough to not throw it away. That there will be evidence… a paper trail… proof that I was here. That I felt something, and said something about it in my own way, wherever I was on life’s Highway. The notebook paper I drew on was not valuable. The ink was not anything special. The story and the connection made it worth something. Made it worth keeping.

The people who have most influenced me are my parents. They supported me and loved me. I took them for granted, the way teens do, I suppose. They made me feel secure, and encouraged my interests even when they didn’t understand them. I was fortunate to get the parents I got. I see now that many are not so blessed. I want to pay it forward.

The people most influenced by me have got to be my children. I don’t want to let them down.

I’m sandwiched between two extraordinary generations, marveling to find myself here.

I work a full time job, and I often say that I can make more money at home. I’m not sure if that’s true. Besides the pay, there are other advantages to my job. For example, when people ask me what my job is, I like to have an answer. I could say I am an artist, or I perform weddings, but I worked hard to become a nurse. I like being able to say I am the only full time nurse working for our school district. And I do love my job. Furthermore, being a nurse has allowed my son to attend school on campus during distance learning with the children of other essential employees, and that has been valuable for him. He is graduating this year and will still need supervision. This is a challenge. So whether or not I purchase a building to run an art gallery, I think the time has come for me to focus on my art, on my family and on my home. I think it’s time to see if all the things I say I believe about myself are really true. Can I make it as an artist? As a full-time professional artist? I believe I can.

I owe it to myself to find out.

I don’t balance my personal life and my creative endeavors, because my creative endeavors are my personal life. I don’t take time off from being me in order to paint or make pottery. If anything, it’s the opposite. The squirt guns and Marco Polo that happen in the shallow end of the pool are a distraction from the life giving vents I find down deep.

That’s what creating art feels like to me.

The noise and demands of the world outside disappear and I lose track of time.

I never know what I might find down there on the bottom, or floating or swimming by. It might be something beautiful or scary or sad. Whatever it is, it’s ok. It’s something that’s inside me. I may not understand it yet, and that’s a good reason to have a nice long look.

I don’t believe there is anything that makes anyone better than anyone else. The only thing that makes anyone worse than anyone else is bad decisions.

It’s true some people have an easier time because they get certain opportunities, but that is an external factor, it is not about creativity or ability.

You don’t have to try to be unique. You are already unique. But the appeal of uniqueness is also a trap. Think of the ways you are alike. It’s that relatability that lets other people into your work.

Uniqueness is compelling when it is authentic, but being different just for the sake of being different is kind of the definition of insanity. So the tightrope of creativity is innovation with a purpose.

You want to say something new, or say something in a new way, but at the same time, you want to be understood, so you have to use a language that your audience will comprehend.

Imagine if I were going to give an important speech, but I wanted to be completely unique, so I made up my own language to deliver my speech in. No one would understand a word of it, and It would be absurd.

You can ask the hard questions, you can be as abstract or avant-garde as you like, but you might want to develop rapport first, or bring a completely unique detail to your work. If there is such a thing as a completely unique detail!

I think something like Mark Rothko’s color fields or Jackson Pollock’s action paintings may have been cutting edge when they were made, but once new ground has been broken, like on Manhattan Island, it is not virgin territory anymore.

Artists that came before us have added their work to the lexicon of art history that informs us, and as we break new ground in our work, we add to the cumulative body of human art.

It sounds like I am contradicting myself.

No! Be unique! Be authentically unique! Push the boundaries and see what you can discover. See what stones our predecessors have left unturned, and say what you have to say in whatever way you choose to say it.

These fish aren’t really painted. I painted the background color and then I removed some of that paint with a wet brush to create the fish. I treated the paint more in the way I would treat glaze on a clay pot.

I chose this frame because it made me think of old boats, old docks, old barrels and fish houses.

This piece speaks not only to the fishing industry here on Minnesota’s North Shore, but also to my Finnish heritage.

I believe that every person has the capacity to be creative. What I mean is, we all have similar hardware. We have hands for holding paintbrushes, eyes for seeing the subject, and also for seeing what we produce. We have a brain to process it all. We have nerve endings so we can feel. For some of us, those emotions find their way out our fingertips through paint and ink, through any number of artistic mediums and fields. For others, they come out through things like meditation, marathon running or compulsive cleaning. We all have our outlets. I think they come naturally. I don’t remember a time before I wanted to draw.

You can have a proclivity for something, but you still have to learn it. You have to practice, and hone your skills. When you plant seeds in your garden, you don’t just eat the produce right away. You have to water and care for the plants. It takes time. It takes nurturing. It’s the same way with the garden in your mind. You have to cultivate those seeds nature has given you. By the time creativity has matured, it is both innate and learned.

That learning is happening all the time if we only pay attention. With every firing of every synapse that stores the smallest bit of information in our brain, we are changed, and we can be inspired. It’s more noticeable when the big things happen, but we are affected by it all.

Maybe I haven’t always known specifically what I wanted to do as an artist, but I have always wanted to communicate.

In that sense, I have always wanted to do what I am doing now.

Spirituality and culture are at the core of my art. Not religion. Not patriotism. My interest goes further back to what it means to be a human… an earthling… not defined by any political or religious border or dogma.

Dear beautiful people:

Life is a transition. It’s one continuous transition that we ride like a slow motion roller coaster. It has all the thrills, all the joy, the friends screaming by our side. I am so happy to be on this ride with you.

I am starting the process of adopting again. Why? Because there is room in my house and room in my heart, and somewhere, a teen who has room for me and my family. A child whose puzzle piece will fit perfectly into our picture, and we will each be a piece that fits into theirs. I’ve been leaving cryptic messages in my blog. Now I want you to know.

I am getting overrun with paintings that also need to find a home, and our journey presents us with various expenses along the path.

The very day I met Raymond, we had a silent auction and artist’s talk at Higher Ed. I don’t think that is how we do things now. So I am open to suggestions.

Love from the Young family

I made my latte in this cup again this morning. It’s one of my favorites.

It’s big. It’s fairly thick, so it keeps coffee hot. It’s got a nice lip on it.

I like the texture both from an aesthetic standpoint, and for the secure grip it offers. I like pretty much everything about it.

This is an old medicine bottle of my dad’s. We brought it up from North Carolina last July, and I like it a lot. We don’t need more stuff to just sit on shelves, so we washed it several times, and filled it with maple syrup.