I went to a talk at the Canton Cultural Center this week, hosted by ArtsInStark, our local community arts council. It ended up being one of those events that sticks with you. The speaker was Dr. Sharon Boyle from Ohio University. She runs their Arts in Health program and has a long background in music therapy, so she brought a real-world viewpoint instead of something abstract.

She opened with a simple idea. Engaging with the arts is a health behavior.

Giving a piece of art to a friend or donating it to a good cause often feels even better than a sale. I’m lucky, I don’t have to make money from my art. If it can make someone happy or help raise money for something worthwhile, that’s a great thing. This is just one of the positive experiences that I’ve had this week. Read on to learn more about my progress and thoughts this week.

Creativity isn't a modern luxury. It's ancient. The same impulse that made early humans grind pigments and press their hands against cave walls is the same one that makes us pick up a brush today. That instinct hasn't left us.

Progress was slow this week. I kept trying to work on the large paintings that I have in motion, but honestly, it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. Looking back, I didn’t actually do anything meaningful with the paintings. (Sigh)

But as I looked back, I actually did a lot.

I’ll admit, I’m not a ballet guy. I’m definitely more at home at a rock concert. I’m betting many people reading this would say the same. So, why keep reading? Because very few of us stop to consider why cultural organizations like the ballet matter, or what it actually takes to keep them alive.

Studio time this week was all about the big stuff. I’m working on several large paintings at once right now. It’s exciting having multiple pieces going. You can bounce between them when one needs to dry or when you need fresh eyes. See what else I’ve been up to in my second October Update!

Five minutes in the studio. That’s all I’ve managed some days. But it counts. The last few weeks have been chaos. New flooring throughout the main floor. Dust everywhere. Travel. Work deadlines. Needy dogs. All of it chipping away at studio time. So I’m taking the smallest steps possible.

Sometimes we lose the thread of our creative lives. I’m currently experiencing this for a number of reasons.

One day, we feel alive, buzzing with possibility. We can’t wait to start. The next, we’re standing in a room where the lights have gone dim. The tools are still there. The brushes, the instrument, the cooking utensils, but they sit silent. We sit silent too.

I've often heard people say that creative people feel "a spark" that makes them do what they do. It's as if we need to feel something before we can actually make something. That a certain mood has to land. Some rare mix of clarity, energy, and excitement must materialize before we can begin. Is it supposed to feel like a light switch that turns on our desires and abilities?

That pull to make something from nothing, it shows up in all kinds of ways. Sometimes it’s about expression. Sometimes it’s about connection. Sometimes we’re trying to understand something. Other times, we just want to feel something. I’ve felt it for as long as I can remember.

Why has creativity been with us from the moment we first walked upright and figured out how to smear pigment on a cave wall? You could argue we’ve always had bigger problems. Survival, for one. But somehow, somewhere between hunting, gathering, mating, and survival, we decided that painting a mammoth on stone was just as essential as finding one to eat.

Eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts may look like a budget cut on paper, but the consequences reach far deeper. Arts funding isn’t just about paintings or performances — it supports jobs, strengthens education, fuels innovation, and helps build vibrant, connected communities.

If you’ve ever lost track of time sketching, painting, or even doodling on the margins of your grocery list, you already know that making something with your hands and mind can be a different kind of meditation. You don’t have to be a monk with a paintbrush or a poet on a mountaintop. You don’t even have to consider yourself an “artist” in the capital A sense.

Andy didn’t just make art; he was art. His carefully curated public image — the silver wig, sunglasses, monotone voice, and mysterious persona — became as iconic as his famous soup cans and celebrity portraits. Today, in a world dominated by social media, like it or not, you are often the product too. Following Warhol’s example means realizing that how you show up and present yourself is important.

What makes something art? It's not a simple question to answer. It’s one of those questions that opens up a much bigger conversation about what we value, how we see the world, and who gets to decide what counts as meaningful.

There are moments in life that open like small windows. They're brief, fleeting, and rare. The older we get, the more we understand how limited these windows are. When we’re young and dumb, summer nights feel endless and you believe that they'll always be there for you. When we're young, we don’t appreciate about how many more nights like this we’ll get, or whether they’ll feel the same again. But the truth is, they don’t come around nearly as often as we think.

When you’re in the middle of making something, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the details. In the moment, each piece is like one of your children. You're obsessing over whether a brushstroke is in the right place or if the color choices make sense. Your mind is wrapped up in the techniques and tools and mediums that you're exploring.

But when you step back, especially months or years later, you can see the bigger picture. You’re no longer caught up in the tiny decisions or whatever headspace you were in at the time. You can appreciate, and even get inspired by what worked and learn from what didn’t.

Abstract art gives artists a certain freedom from the confines of realism. Not every brushstroke or splash of paint always leads to a masterpiece. Sometimes, less is really more.

In a genre already focused on emotion and essence over literal representation, simplicity is a way to cut through the noise and static, allowing the artwork to hit its mark with elegance and impact.

I was recently required to take the CliftonStrengths test as a part of a leadership program that I’m participating in. I have taken the test before, and I was curious to see what it would tell me about myself now, more than a decade later. 

On the surface, it’s an appealing idea: answer a series of questions, and in return, you get a snapshot of your greatest strengths. But, as  I took the test, and the more I sat with the results, the more I slowly started to ponder the real downsides.