As I was putting together another email announcement of a show the other day I was thinking about how, depending on my feeling about my work at the time, this process can be easy or rather hard. I am not sure if most everyone understands that part of the process of making things, creating things is not really knowing sometimes where you are going. This is how it is for me. It helps to look over your shoulder at what you have made to give yourself direction but really it isn’t so important what was made in the past but rather what is being made presently. So how honestly can one be doggedly extolling the virtues of what you’re doing all the time even though part of the time you aren’t entirely sure? I have come to accept that you need to be lost sometimes if you are to change, to breakthrough, to improve. In fact out this struggle sometimes comes my best work. It seems to me to be somewhat of a deception to be constantly putting out the message that you have arrived when actually you got off at the wrong station and are just simply lost. I never want to admit it. I will be painting furiously for several hours and even though I do know a tremendous amount about what I am doing, I can get to a point where I can look at my painting that’s as big as me- (over 6 ft) and realize that I actually have no clear sense of what I have just done. It hits me so hard that I sometimes just have to sit down and stare at the ridiculous amount of intention, the sheer effort it took to wind up here, in a place that seems foreign and unfamiliar. Humbling is an understatement. It’s one of the great aspects of doing art that no two efforts are the same. Each comes with a new challenge, a new problem to solve. Sometimes it falls into place other times not. On a day when it doesn’t it is a difficult time to self promote. It’s challenging to encourage collectors to come to your upcoming show or to talk to a gallery about raising your prices. And actually, I don’t think we are hard wired to endlessly go on about ourselves and things we have done in the past. I tell my students that the hat of the promoter has nothing at all to do with your art, that it is a second kind of side business that is there only to insure the viability of the first. So it’s a challenge, I feel, that surely plagues many creative people but curiously it is rarely spoken about. I guess admitting unsure ness, hesitation runs counter to the assurance and brilliance we are all trying so desperately hard to convey.

These photographs by Chris Jordan were taken on Midway Atoll in the middle of the North Pacific. These photographs document the remains of albatross chicks that have been fed, unintentionally by their parents, floating plastic garbage collected from the sea. Thousands of these baby birds die every year as a result. In Nature, all color harmonizes with all other colors. However, in manufactured creation, such as the making of plastic, the color often ends up being uncomfortably bright and as a result, unrelated to everything else in it’s environment. Nothing demonstrates the unsettling nature of synthetic color juxtaposed with the sophisticated color of Nature better than these exquisite photographs.
http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#about

This is an excerpt from a book I am working on about Creativity. The book, like the workshops we teach, utilize 6 Principles as a framework, roadmap to allowing more artistry, more creativity into our lives. This excerpt is taken from the chapter on Soul, Principle #6. -NW

Aristotle defined Soul as the inner core, the essential essence of a person or a living thing. Sometimes, I believe however, an inanimate object can be imbued with this same essence. When enough passion and life force is contributed into the making of something, it almost seems magically to carry with, to hold within its center a small degree of this very same soulfulness. This aspect, this overflow of soul into a work is what transforms an activity, an effort, a creation into something more valuable and rare. It changes it, pushes it into an entirely new realm. It’s called Art.
The whole notion of creativity is about bringing something into existence that hasn’t existed before. Like magic, all manner of things can be made visible whether it’s a beautiful ceramic pot, a birthday cake, a painting or a marble sculpture. But here, and this being the very last principle of the 6, is where we can take a breath and relax. Because this Sixth Principle, Soul, develops in our work on it’s own. We simply need to be ourselves. Show up and pay attention as deeply as possible. And, this is important, we need to earnestly care about what we’re making. This intention, Soul, is the aspect of ourselves that is perfectly constant. It is carried inside us and is the primary thread, the guiding light of the creative arc of our life.
Interestingly, asking questions seem to be the easiest way to ease into an understanding about Soul.
Questions such as “What is important for you? What is engaging? What do you care about? These simple questions if answered truthfully will invariably lead us to the kind of creativity that results in work with a high degree of Soul. After all, if it is imbued with this quality then it will be, like you, totally unique. It will be yours. And it’s this uniqueness, this highly personal expression that creates the tremendous value to your work. Especially for others.
Sometimes it’s difficult to see this thread, this continuum in what we are making. Creative efforts are often accomplished in fits and starts. Changes occur rapidly and at other times not at all, but in the persistence of our efforts, it’s reassuring to know that if we consistently pay attention and put care into whatever we are making that much of our concerns about our apparent successes or failures will fall by the wayside.
It is, in the beginning, sometimes difficult to see the value of our own individuality. Especially so when much of our work, up ahead, cannot be seen as it lies quietly waiting in the future, unmade.
David Whyte, the poet, philosopher writes, “ If we can see the path laid out in front of us there is a good chance it is not our path. It is probably someone else’s we have substituted for our own.”
Rest assured, if we are paying attention earnestly, staying true to what is important and engaging to us then, much of our creative journey will take care of itself.

My Mother in Law picked this lemon off her tree. It obviously has some kind of different genetic coding than other lemons.
It just makes me wonder how it is that things stay as normal as they actually do.

When I was out in Santa Fe I visited Michael Kessler, an artist who lives just outside Santa Fe, NM. He came to my opening and I had actually just seen his work on you tube. He is extremely prolific not only with his paintings but with all aspects of his business. His videos are pretty great and he has made a lot of them. Thousands of people view and comment on them on YouTube. Whenever I visit artists I am always inspired. His work is beautiful but it was especially interesting to me to see a vetaran artist who has a pretty good sense of the business side of art. Michael has organized his studio so he can make his art panels, paint on several at the same time, photograph them, and crate and then send his work all without leaving his studio. All of these steps he does himself. I think people in art and businss get in the mindset that they have to hire people to do everything that they are not experienced at doing. I know I do. Michael, however, seems to have adopted a different attitude about the process of making art…he loves EVERY step and wants to do it all himself. As I drove back to Santa Fe I thought about how extroardinary this mindset is and how it can shift the entire way artists, or anyone for that matter, can think about their work. That not one part is better or easier, it’s just all one seamless journey, a highly personal process developed from passionate hard work.. …What I learned or maybe re learned that day was this: The entire process of making art can be as personal and as important as the art itself.

To see Michaels work: http://www.michaelkessler.com/

This year I had made all the paintings for the show “Life Fortune” almost 5 weeks early as I was out of the country for all of July. It was especially nice to not be painting up to the last minute – sending paintings barely dry. It also provided me with a fresh view of my work when, after not seeing it for over a month, I arrived at the gallery and was able to walk into a room and see it all hanging. The owners of the gallery, Selby and Eddie, had designed the show and it looked great. I had forgotten about the gallery walls actually being made of adobe and as a result have a gorgeous earthy brown color that sets off art beautifully. I really enjoyed getting to meet some of the people who have followed my work. The fact never escapes me that without those interested in my work, those people passionate enough about art that it must be a part of their lives, I wouldn’t be able to afford to do what I love. Gratitude is not really a big enough word for how it makes you feel when someone supports and believes in what you make. I forgot to take pictures during the opening but snapped a few the next day. The sculpture standing below my painting is by Joe Brubaker.
I love his work and especially how this one looked standing next to my painting.

What is it about leaving your life for awhile, that makes everything seem so different, but the same upon your return? is it possible that just changing your background, your surroundings that shifts everything? When I am traveling I feel so artistically fulfilled and perfectly content to just look at things…To learn about new places, people’s lives, to try to understand why things are as they are. My need to make art diminishes when I travel. I wonder if it is all about change? Change being the required ingredient in a fulfilling life-if your seeing new things constantly- such as when your traveling, then your fulfilled, content and pretty close to happy. At least this is the case with me. Put me in one place,( home) repeat the same experiences, the same drives, stores, etc and then I start making things again. The art is just more necessary to make when I am standing in one place.

Our family has just returned home from Cambodia where we spent a couple of weeks with 150 amazing kids at an orphanage in Phnom Penh. Most of these kids are orphans and have been rescued, often around the age of 5 or 6, from living on the garbage dumps just outside of the city. The orphanage is a very uplifting place covered in decorations and photos of visiting friends who have helped this organization over the years. At the the head of this family of 150 children is an extraordinary man, Sokha who, along with his wife, look after and imbue these kids with love and a startling sense of self worth and respect not just for themselves but each other as well.
One of the projects we did with them was to write and illustrate your dream. What the future might hold if their dreams come true. The kids are all very clear about wanting to get educated and each have very clear ideas already about becoming doctors, engineers, english teachers, etc. At the Center for Children’s Happiness, they are educated and many are eligible for scholarships to universities upon graduating high school. I have never experienced a more harmonious, kind and grateful group of young children in my life. We did artwork, photography, read books, sang and generally just spent time getting to know as many as we could. Our last night with them we had a party in the small cement courtyard of the Center. The kids danced and sang with such joy. It was so triumphant, so inspiring to experience. I will never forget it. This kind of happiness and gratitude maybe only comes from those who have been given a second chance at life.
The first 3 photos of the garbage dump below were taken by Sambath, one of the promising young photojournalists who lives at CCH. The photos below do not show the magnitude or the actual number of those living at the dumps. There are about 900 people who live and work there, picking through the city’s refuse for recyclables and food. The two american girls in the photos are my daughters. To find out more about CCH and how you can help…http://www.cchcambodia.org/index.html

On our trip to Southern Thailand we came across this limestone cave which doubled as a dwelling for local Buddhist Monks. They lived very simply underneath an immense limestone overhang. Upon the walls were very old paintings. The seasonal rains had worn down the paint creating this beautiful surface -part stone, part paint. The monks lived here and as they do not value possesions did not mind us photographing them. They had very little. Their orange robes drying on a line, old books, a clock some basic kitchen items. Each monk slept in one of these small houses, just big enough to lay down in. In Buddhist countries you often see monks. Rarely, however, does one get a peek into the personal, the intimate aspects of their lives. Lives of committed simplicity and quiet contemplation.

We are in Thailand right now. Last night we walked down the beach and came to this huge stretch of beach that looked like someone had made hundreds of abstract drawings all over the beach. It turned out that it was actually a small neighborhood of burrowing crabs that were simply rolling up balls of sand and pushing them out of their holes in the sand. The tropical breeze would shift directions re arranging them into these beautiful shapes.