Wyatt's Musings

Taking Chances

Taking Chances

It is important to take chances. I don’t mean the kind of chances where the risk is certain failure. I don’t mean the kind of chances where you efforts aren’t a factor in the outcome.

Don’t be afraid. One failure is not the worst that can happen to you. Put five pounds on the barbell not twenty. Doing what you know you can do because you’ve done it before, is not always what you should do today. A little beyond what you have done in your past keeps you growing. If you aren’t growing then you are diminishing. There...


Taking care of your artistic self is your responsibility.

Taking care of your artistic self is your responsibility.

Taking care of your artistic self is your responsibility.

No one else will do it for you. At the most critical junctures, most and sometimes no one will believe in you enough to support what you know you have to do. But I don’t think faith is knowing 100%. It’s more the kind of knowing one has when hitting a tennis ball and knowing it will hit it’s mark. It is still and small. For me, faith is having to act despite my doubts. The unsupportive may be well intended friends or family members....


Rising to the Occasion

Rising to the Occasion

I don’t usually take a day off and do nothing. I’ll usually find something to occupy myself. Yesterday I had my second COVID vaccine. Today I woke up with body aches and there were little people with baseball bats inside my head.

When I was in school I looked forward to sick days. I had an excuse to stay home and as soon as everyone left, I’d pull out my guitar and begin to write. The mild delirium of being ill produced a warped viewpoint making for some pretty good sounds. I would forget about the...


“A soft answer turned away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

“A soft answer turned away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

     

    That was the first bible verse I learned as a kindergarten aged boy. My Sunday school teacher (mandolinist Hal Jeanes’ mother) gave us all white leatherette Gideon bibles with the New Testament, psalms, and proverbs. I was brought up methodically in the church.

    I memorized those words by heart and occasionally revisit them to mine what they mean to me at the moment. The verses don’t change but I do according to how they...


Coming to the Crossroads

Coming to the Crossroads

 

I’m in the middle of the painting and I am at a crossroads. I know what I should do. It is a risky choice. The painting is moving now and I can’t stay still and do nothing. I have to act. There is doubt in my heart. I never really know. I only believe. I need a broad area of paint. There will be no going back. It might make the painting but my fear worries it could destroy it. I can’t cling too much to certainty. Watercolor goes forward and does not stand still....