On Christmas Eve, 2013 Mike Owens, my eldest son was thinking about sending an ecard out to his family and friends – all far away. Upon seeing this image of a bare tree with ornaments, standing alone in the snowy night – he started to write what he...
Twas the night before Christmas and all through my little Tico house Frank and I looked for the ‘just right’ classic ‘feel good’ movie to watch… My collection of DVDs didn’t include It’s a Wonderful Life or The Miracle on 34th Street, so we took a quick look at the...
Years ago New Mexico opened my eyes and life to the magic, the mysterious, the unexplainable. There in that rarified place my spirit came alive. What other explanation for the transformation that began over 20 years ago in the high desert of The Land of Enchantment. I...
It feels a lot like I washed up on a Costa Rican shore on Christmas Eve, having barely survived a shipwreck. Perhaps a bit dramatic, but the shipwreck was real. It was 2008 and I’d survived medical bankruptcy, a resistant staph infection in my spine, addiction...
In my workshops I always tell my students that if they truly have a painting that they are positive cannot be fixed, I will be happy to take it and demonstrate the idea that nothing is ‘unfixable’. In Cloudcroft, New Mexico a student handed me a painting...
Beak is a half moon conure I’ve had for 10+ years. Most everyone who meets him loves him – because he is terminally upbeat. And noisy. I found him one Sunday morning on the floor of the aviary – walking. He wasn’t able to fly – or walk...
I was still debating in my mind about what to paint for the first Cloudcroft workshop demo. In a few minutes my 15 students would gather in front of the mirror to watch – and I quickly settled on the colorful scarlet macaw. Rather than paint the more limited colors of...
For as long as I can remember money has been one of the most important relationships in my life. I’m pretty sure I’ve paid as much attention to money as I have to any other relationship. I’m not proud of it. But maybe I’m getting better at...
I was in the third row surrounded by fellow zoology and biology students. We were listening to Professor Garrett Hardin lecture about conscious awareness in animals. He said something to the effect that there was no scientific evidence that animals other than humans...
Long after my New Mexico experience with the magpies and crows and their raucous death watch over one of my pigeons, I carried the memory of the event with me and continued to wonder. Had I witnessed animal consciousness in the crows and magpies that gathered at the...
