Sometimes it takes a frustrating experience to bring something into focus.
Recently, I’ve been working on putting my website together. What should have been a relatively straightforward project turned into a series of challenges, workarounds, and moments when I wondered why something so simple had become so complicated.
I’d try something, get nowhere, and try it again. Sometimes five times.
You’d think I’d know better by now.
Eventually, though, I had to stop and ask myself a simple question: What is actually going to work here?
Not what should work. Not what worked for somebody else. What was going to work for me?
And that’s when things started coming together.
The website itself was a victory. But something else came out of the experience. It got me thinking about how we approach problems, how we learn from experience, and how the things we encounter along the way shape who we become.
It’s a subject I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
As an artist, I’ve spent years making paintings, selling them, experimenting with ideas, and learning from the people and experiences I’ve encountered along the way. Some experiences were good. Others weren’t. Some people taught me valuable lessons, while others taught me what I didn’t want to repeat.
All of it became part of my experience.
We don’t always recognize the significance of an experience while we’re going through it. Sometimes we understand it only later, when we look back and see how it influenced the way we think, work, and approach the next challenge.
I’ve come to realize that being an artist involves much more than putting paint on a canvas.
It’s about observation, experimentation, curiosity, and the willingness to try something different. It’s about learning from mistakes, recognizing possibilities, and figuring out what to do when things don’t go as planned.
And sometimes, it’s about knowing when to stop banging your head against the wall and find another way around it.
That’s a lesson I apparently still need to practice.
But maybe that’s part of the point.
We’re constantly learning, regardless of how much experience we have. The circumstances change, the problems change, and the solutions aren’t always the same. What worked yesterday might not work today.
The challenge is to remain open to possibilities.
Looking back, I can see how my experiences have influenced not only how I approach business and everyday problems, but also how I approach my art.
Every painting begins with an idea, but bringing that idea to life involves decisions, discoveries, adjustments, and sometimes unexpected turns. You start with a vision, but the finished painting doesn’t always arrive exactly where you thought it would.
Sometimes the best part is discovering something you hadn’t anticipated.
And that makes me wonder: Is all of this part of what makes me the painter I am?
Perhaps it’s not just about the colors I choose, the lines I create, or the way I arrange shapes on a canvas. Perhaps it’s also about the experiences that have shaped my eye, my thinking, and my willingness to explore something new.
I’m not suggesting that every painting needs to tell a personal story or that someone looking at my work needs to know anything about my life.
But the person making the painting brings a lifetime of experience to it, whether those experiences are obvious in the finished work or not.
Maybe that’s something worth considering.
I’m still experimenting, still learning, still solving problems, and still discovering things about myself and my work.
And if there’s one thing this recent website adventure has reminded me of, it’s that I don’t have to keep doing something the same way just because that’s how I started.
Sometimes I need to step back, look at what I’m trying to accomplish, and find the approach that makes sense.
That’s true in business. It’s true in life. And perhaps it’s true in painting, too.
Maybe being an artist isn’t just about what I create.
Maybe it’s also about everything that has made me the person who creates it.
I’m not trying to come up with a definitive answer. I’m simply recognizing connections that I find interesting, and exploring where they might lead.
The story continues.
