About

In the world of the arts (into which I have inserted almost all of my big toe) there is much talk about the meaning of art, the usefulness and impact of art.  Horace Vandergelder in “Hello Dolly” famously declares that “a living is made by selling something that everybody needs at least once a year.  And a million is made by producing something everybody needs every day. You artists, you painters, produce nothing that nobody needs, never.”  Not a ringing endorsement for the essential need for beauty and expression in the world.  Yet artists, like myself, will argue that it’s at least worth noting that the great dictators of history seem to be inordinately bothered by the work of playwrights, painters, and poets, seeming to indicate that their work has some kind of effect on society.  An effect that can be powerful and even dangerous, even if they often fail to make a million.

Since the arts are what interest me and what I seem to be at least a little bit good at, I’ve chosen to try and use them to change the world for the better.  If my work wields any power at all, I hope it will be used to create a compassion that leads to action in the lives of the people who view it.  This might seem like a lot to ask, but we artists have a penchant for long-reaching goals.  Maybe that’s what makes us so loopy, and yet so interesting to talk to.

In the artist part of my life I am first a writer.  I work on novels as if there aren’t three of them already sitting on my hard drive.  I also write and perform poetry, I play the guitar and sing if coerced, and I crochet hats, mittens, scarves, blankets, and anything else that can feasibly be made out of yarn and an aluminum hook.  This blog will be the documentation and hopefully discussion of the soaring successes and piddling disappointments along the road to that long-reaching goal.  You’ll get to hear hopes and theory behind the my work, along with the challenges and hilarity of trying to bring it into the world.  And somewhere in this mystical transaction, tales of creative compassion will emerge.