Sharing success

He has started his very first job since graduating from college and a smile radiates deeply from my core. Someone is interested in producing her film script and the step in my walk is much lighter. She is healing from her accident and I sleep through the night more completely. He's received great responses from his new clients and a sense of peace and security flows over me.

Whether you've had love ones buy a new home, salvage a relationship, finish school, rebound from illness, scale to career heights or turned out a great party, you have shared in their success. There have been times when success meant for me what I was able to put onto my resume of experience and achievements. The places I've worked and the things I did, where I've sold my work and those who bought it. But when looked at in such a limited way, one misses the success of holding a hand, forming a dream, building a foundation and being a penny investor in the lives that surround you. Every time they realize their dream, you are a winner. Your spiritual resume flourishes with deeds that only show up in your soul.

As I celebrate my birthday today (July 29), I am filled with all the wonderful achievements of those of you who allowed me to participate in your dreams. Please keep sharing those dreams with me and those you love, because it makes us all a success.

The road we travel

Wherever you are on your road to success, it has been traveled on before by those you most admire. Some have reached the same point earlier in their lives, some later. However, they have all been in the spot you now stand, with the same hopes, fears, losses and successes. Sometimes the accomplishments seem of little consequence, until they are viewed from a perspective further down the road, when one realizes how that little step fostered a major development in their lives. Sometimes those losses are the biggest step to one's overall advancement because of what they teach you.

The step by step approach to fulfilling your dreams, which is, at best, tedious and limited in effect, has one inevitable impact. It gets things done.

Not once in the process of completing my new series of paintings did I foresee any of them completed on time or being part of a substantial whole. Each painting sat by itself, in various stages of completion, looking nowhere near the original concept that it was started with. It was only the step by step relentless application of one stroke after another that moved them along beyond my greatest imagination. Things happened with them and to me in the process that I had not envisioned. Color choices and their relationships evolved, almost on their own accord, with me being no more than a witness. You can see a partial compilation of the artwork in a new book entitled "Sumbrellas, A Vision of Martha's Vineyard", which is a catalog of images for the exhibition on August 8th at Cousen Rose Gallery.

The implementation of the paintings are a microcosm of the life I am building and if they can be pursued relentlessly, so can my dream. When we are in pursuit of something the steps to achieving it reveals itself one after the other, just like the steps taken. Sure one needs an overall plan, but the steps are minute, and it takes many of them to reach the goal.

Finally serenity

It seems as soon as something ends, something begins. There is the sensation of a transition from one thing to another, but in reality the next thing has already begun. All the subsequent steps of an action are in motion from the very first step along a road. As I complete the paintings for the showing of my new works, beginning on August 8th, at Cousen Rose Gallery, the last brushstrokes precipitates the framing and promotions and everything else to follow. It only appears to be a linear achievement when in reality the consciousness surrounding the choices have been all made in tandem long before. Whether one is aware of it, at the time, or not, doesn't prevent the inevitable unfolding of those steps.


There have been some works that materialized with seeming effortlessness in a very short amount of time, whereby others have required continuous redirection with many changes along the way. One's dreams are murky at best and do not come together with advance clarity of vision, without an inherent struggle to achieve them. The payoff is in the struggle because it provides the challenge and reward of living. Everything that comes out of that is "gravy", as they say. The recent painting shown here entitled, "Serenity", captures for me the peace of just being.....

Many things have transpired since my last writing here, some happy and some sad and all motivational. The recent transition of Michael Jackson have brought him back to life to each of us in a more personal way and has allowed us to reflect on the stage of his life we loved the most. All of our lives have various stages which we will be remembered for and each of them holding an appeal for different people. At best you can make them all memorable for yourself, too.