Taos 5am...............this one resides on a lawyers office wall in L.A. ........ Could be a lot of "famous folks" see it.....

for whatever it is worth.
Interesting..... when this one sold, a war broke out among the gallery owners. One said they still owned the rights to release my whole batch, the other had 3 more in line to sell already and insisted that I was part of the package of their gallery split.
Amazing.
And I wouldn't have found out any of this, had I not asked the 70 year old secretary who gave me the inside story......
that was 13 years ago.
I look in the mirror today and I ask myself how long it will be before I have my fellow yogi friend representing me in future deals?
What will it take to insure I learn from what I have experienced?
So, back then,
....I eventually sold 2 more, and out of that, my framing was charged, and I earned a wopping 69.88. I got caught in the fine print...
.... but I still own the repro rights.
I can eventually make it all back, if I work with it today, via the internet...eventually. But guess what's even better?
I'll tell you anyway.... As far as I can tell, I can finally paint freely.

yeah... you got it...

And you wouldn't believe it, but even though I have painted over 400 decent finished pieces, and successfully found good homes for them.... I haven't done it for money... I've done it for the art....for the art of living the art, in order to get to this point where I can honestly say, I am enjoying making ths stuff... finally.

....you see, the truth is, I must have rose to a certain level because of all these years of being in service of it... of doing it...
Yeah.
... Guess what, I actually enjoy painting these days, for a change!
...after all this time.

You may wonder what those other paintings, and this one, were built on?.... me too..... me too... me too.

I can tell you this, painting and the creative process hasn't been all that much fun for me, all these years... it's been work, folks... a labor of love... but not a labor of fun, until, maybe, NOW... we'll have to see how long this can last. I hope it lasts for the rest of my journey in this world.

Crazy as it sounds, painting has always been a struggle.

Don't you think it would be, in a world like this one?

You might think life has always been a struggle for me, after reading some of my blog.... I realize this could be interpreted as my disclosure on the "struggles of the artistic personality". But it isn't really the case, for me. I think the world, the civilized world , is the reason for the struggle. The mose natural, life giving part of our equation must be done for producing a dollar... how much more evil could it ever get???

I enjoy EXPERIENCING LIFE... but that means walks in nature, stimulating conversation, enjoying beauty around me... the rest is work.

When It comes to living inthis upside down society, I get most happy fulfilling somebody else's dreams , or helping them towards theirs. Yeah, it hurts a little walking them towards something that I know they will probably leave me out of, once they have a taste of it and direct TV... but such is the choice of "civilization"... what else is there, unless you are born wealthy, you're gonna have to struggle just for the basics... get ready to do that "bigtime" unless you get good at putting on shows to confuse investors.

But, creatively working for wsomebody else's dream fruition can be fun, if you are able to face them trading you out.

The process is a bigger joy than I could ever describe... just a different kind of joy.....

Everybody says "have fun" when they see me embarking on a few hours of solitude to encourage the creative mind to express, ie;paint. But they don't realize that I have to find the "gold" among the rocks and debris, just like they do.

Perhaps even moreso, since I am right handed, for some strange reason. My left brain gets in the way most of the time, just like yours. the judgemental evaluating part of the brain can't make sense of the happy accidents. But I give the intuitive mine final voting power... It's like a war of the psyche.
Not a lot of fun...
until now.

... though I have trained that part of me to become quiet, it still thrashed, until just a few weeks ago.

believe it or not.

Yeah, I could have built a direct route by just re-training my natural left hand... you'd see a completely different kind of stroke then. I am not so sure it matters. Once the resistance of the left brain finally started giving some ground, I just felt that the path had to go through those doors that way. After all, is the rational mind really good for anything except doing the laundry and chopping wood for the fire? Maybe it's a good thing to earn the price of admission to see it roll over so easily for me now.

....the whole new experience.... It's unique and new for me... strange as it may seem, it's as if I just started to enjoy the painting process again, like from a child mind part of me... fresh, but memorable. It happened somewhere, in some other time before... log ago.

Maybe it is just because I have done enough of a range of world service through the tv show, the dedication to the Aha! center, helping a few folks along the trail to this day, here and there... or maybe it is because I was able to help myself stay alive through the struggle long enough that I can just arrive to the arena and watch the opponent lie down....

All the tests I needed to pass... stuff that seemed to represent what I lost.... while I painted in solitude. All those shared moments unshared, because the canvas and that struggle was the key back to the world with these eyes glued to a better goal; the joy inside the expereince.

Maybe I reached out just enough times over all these years to finally hit that point where the "ball starts to roll on it's own again".... maybe that is it... critical mass.

I look at this painting, and I remember how I doubted it. I remember how I struggled over the ratio of light compared to shadows and sky.... How important that all was, and how I painted it over, and over and over again... never able to get it exactly right, until the day I said it was finished.

Now, with new eyes, I see... it is finished. It was finished.

And it was hard to let it just be, and say "OK".

Now, well ..... Now, it truly stands solid and strong.
...as I said... I see it true.

I can bless it now.

This is only becuase I see it finally with a freer heart. Clearer somehow.......

I stood there!
Right there, in that place!

Where those light and shadow dancing moments occurred!

And when I see this, tonight, I see those moments again, fresh, new, real and forever...in my mind's eye...
...and I can truly say I did them honor, justice, truth with my brush. .....

Interesting as it may all seem,sound... amaze... I can paint as good or better a version any day I choose. today... tomorrow... next week.... a few more years from now... equal or better.

When I traveled through these moments that I now reflect on while viewing this painting, I was embracing their infinity... and they are as fresh as ever...

... in a sense, waiting for me to see real, true, new and forever inside this perception that took 14 years to deepen...
....until this day when I can truly paint them freer of heart than ever before.

Who could ever say that the journey was not worth what it cost to get here?
...where I can say this and know it is true? Who could ever say that it wasn't worth it?