Art mentor

After some searching and interviewing I have found an energetic and incredibly vocal-to say the least-teacher to help guide me, inspire me and perhaps push me in my art development and his name is Shogun Curtis. Shogun (not his given name) is his school's nickname and I was told that everyone at the school has to come up with an appropriate nickname once begun involved which I thought was pretty funny.

Shogun Curtis and his wife "Emp" (yes, her nickname as well) who started the Humble School of Arts and Music located in Brookline, Massachusetts agreed to mentor and guide me in my endeavor to become a better artist. You can visit their website at: www.humbleschool.com.

Although I my financial limitations at this time will prevent me from following through with his guidance I would like to thank him and his lovely wife "Emp" for their consideration into the school and for their time. I would like to thank them for recommending I read "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. BTW - that will be your first assignment is to read this book.

I would love to study with Shogun if my situation allows but until then I wish them all the luck with their school. I definitely think he has a lot to offer any artist whether they are just starting out of if they're very proficient. Shogun has a school of thought that an artist's best tool is his mind and that even if you cut off an artist's hands and feet that he can still paint with his head which made great sense to me.

Honored my commitment to myself to paint

Today I followed through on my commitment to myself to paint daily by waking up at 4:30 am and I painted until 6:30 am. I scared the hell out of my wife who came home from the gym and thought a pipe had burst because the lights were on in the basement.

I really have to get the basement converted over soon because setting up an easel in the middle of dirty and clean laundry, old paint buckets and leaning lumber is not very inspirational. I posted our elliptical machine for sale on Craigslist yesterday so hopefully we can sell that and gain some room back. This will also make converting the basement into a family room/art studio a little easier.

I'm going to post before and after photos of room on this blog as well as the progress I'm making. Hopefully this project will inspire other artists and would-be artists to do the same by creating a working space of their own to create art in. We have an extremely small house and extra space is non-existent. We have two children and live in a 650 sq foot house just to give you an idea of how small we're talking. Purchasing a 10' x 16' shed has also been discussed for a possible studio as well and I haven't ruled that out yet either. I suppose if I can generate the $4,000 to buy the shed using sales from my artwork then that might solve the space issue, but until then I have to stick with plan A.