During my 2nd year of law school, I felt a different calling to drop out and become an artist. I finished my law degree, nonetheless. After working as a lawyer for 3 years, I stopped and attended the Mount Royal Graduate School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where I studied for 2 years. My art career then got off to a promising start. Barbara Haskell, curator of the Whitney Museum of Art, gave my work “honorable mention” in a show she judged in Arlington, VA. After that I was included in several art exhibits in the Baltimore area. The necessities of life, however, quickly drew me back into the practice of law and over time painting languished into a hobby.
Many years later, in 2009, still a lawyer, I was baptized in the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of Maine. Thereafter, God slowly took over my life, and my priorities are realigning as I continue to follow him. Eventually, I retired from law altogether.
The parable of the talents has special significance for me. (Matthew 25:14). Rather than bury my talent in the ground, I want to use my talent and honor it as it is God’s gift. This desire keeps me pressing on, even when I doubt the quality and significance of my work. What I do is for God.
My preferred method of painting is intuitive. As I paint, I find a composition, and the work of art presents itself through the work of painting. I have learned that my best art results this way, when I allow the Holy Spirit to guide me. God, of course, is the original and highest and best artist. He created us in his image to be creative beings. Ephesians 2:10 tells us we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. I try to rest in this promise; that my good work, in this instance my artwork, has already been prepared for me by God. My primary task is to show up and put in the effort. Mindful of this, I paint without knowing where it is I am going. I believe this is a kind of faithfulness that is pleasing to God.