A Way of Being

Living life as an artist is not simply about making art; it is a way of being. The practice itself gives the artist a goal—an aim—and the motivation to show up again and again. The true reward does not lie in the finished product. Ask any artist. Most will tell you they never quite know when to stop, when to declare a piece complete. Completion is a question we ask and answer repeatedly, often without certainty.

Last spring, during a visit to Descanso Gardens, I felt compelled to begin articulating some of these thoughts. It was a bleak spring day, overcast and quiet, yet I was struck by the abundance of color in the rose garden. Ironically, it wasn’t the roses that captivated me, but the irises. They were blooming everywhere—pale blues, vibrant purples, subtle mauves, and brilliant yellows—each asserting its presence in its own way.

I returned day after day for an entire week, sketching and painting a few irises at a time. Sometimes they revealed themselves in sunlight, other times under the soft veil of cloud cover. Each shift in light offered a new lesson, a new way of seeing.

After completing the initial sketches, I transitioned to larger watercolor pieces. Then a quiet thought surfaced: I’ve always wanted to try pastels. For a couple of years, I had been watching, learning, and taking workshops with pastel artists such as Tony Allain, Marla Baggetta, and Alain Picard. Yet I had never fully committed to the medium. Courage, it turns out, arrives slowly.

When I finally took the leap, I reminded myself to focus on one essential thing—composition and layout. As tempting as it was to get carried away by color and texture, especially while working with something unfamiliar, there was a deeper search unfolding beneath the surface. That search became the driving force that moved me forward.

The watercolor paintings eventually found their forever homes. The pastels, on the other hand, remain with me. They serve as gentle reminders that there is still distance to travel before the medium fully embraces me—and that, perhaps, is exactly the point.