Anyone who knows me also knows how much I love my family. They are my greatest gift. And this year for Christmas I wanted to give them something I had thought about for several years. That "something" was a book that summarized memorable moments in the lives of each of our children. I wanted to do this to remind my children of their gifts, their uniqueness, and what I perceived as their destiny as it began to reveal itself early in each of their lives. I was hoping that the book would be of some help in understanding themselves as they go on to raise their own families.

Initially I thought the book would be about 50 pages, or 5-6 pages for each of our eight children., But as I started writing I drifted into lessons learned, the purpose of life, the significance of adversity, and the existence of God. As you can imagine, this initial 50-page project grew into a 350 page dissertation. And those 350 pages required most of my time for the past three months. Although I had no time for painting, I believe this has been one of the most productive periods of my life. It became a time of personal reflection that has given me renewed inspiration to begin painting with an increased conviction.

As my book grew in scope, a singular message grew in clarity and significance. And that message was given to us by Jesus Christ when He was asked which commandment is the greatest. Jesus replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind." And, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The more I thought about what Christ had said, the more I realized that we have to love ourselves before we can give love fully to others. And in order to love ourselves we need to understand and appreciate our own unique God-given talents. We need to love being us. And then we can love our neighbors and their individualism.

So what does all this have to do with art? Well, we artists are fortunate for our uniqueness. We see and feel the world with a different appreciation than others. And we enjoy sharing our perceptions through art. It may be more accurate to say we are driven to create art and share it. The quality of that art is the result of the artist's talent and skill, and the impact on observers.