For years, I considered myself an artist. As a painter sometimes full time, sometimes hobbyist, but never commercial. As a software creator, a kind of Renaissance minor character putting unique code frescoes in tiny commercial corporate monasteries.
Visual art has entranced me, off and on, and added a great depth to my life. There are so many aspects that I begin by numbering this entry in the expectation that many more explorations will follow.
This particular focus is on the validity of alternative self-views in our lives. It has become far too easy to become a compulsive self-declared expert and slip into a constricting rabbit hole. Maybe social media, maybe work, maybe family, maybe almost any odd thing. A blinding obsession distorting or eliminating all else.
I used art, mostly, as a balance. It opened doors to other goals when I studied the lives of artists.. it granted me new perspectives on meaning as I considered such things as aesthetics. And on an intimate level, it let me feel I was doing something real when all else went badly.
But I emphasize the “all else.” My life involved work, family and a few other necessities. Art remained a side reward. I think that is the value and purpose of hobbies.
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 