If you haven’t yet seen the movie Local Color by producer George Gallo (also an artist), you are missing out. It’s available on rental now. The movie is based on a true experience of a young man who is mentored by a Russian master plein air painter. It has many inspiring moments and dialogues, with challenging statements like “a journey shared is more deeply moving an experience then a journey taken alone”, reminding us that artists who gather to paint together are stronger for it.

Yesterday, I woke in a slump and decided to fight it with a dose of inspiration. I realized I’d never been to a museum by myself, so off to Tulsa to the Philbrook I went.

From my years as a designer, I remembered that it’s helpful to have a goal before taking in gobs of visual eye-candy, so I started by meditating in the parking lot about what I wanted to find—what drove me to come here. As I calmed myself in the parked car, it struck me that I spend little time identifying what it is that moves my artistic spirit. I wrote in my art journal “discover what moves me”. Read the rest of this entry »