Personal + Professional Growth, Fall 2018 Update

  I haven't done a blog post in while, but I feel like now's a good time.  I've been experiencing a lot of development in my personal and professional life recently.  My professional life is going really well and I'm so thankful that I get to teach art to a wonderful group of students; it's really an amazing experience to be a full time teacher and artist.
 I've also been personally developing a lot in terms of my own artistic outlook and philosophy.  My main artistic goal now is to create paintings and drawings that reflect my own world in the present moment.  I don't see any purpose to creating paintings that reflect a world perceived through a camera.  And I know my own work is strongest when it's not just a copy of a photo.
 I'm gravitating away from a lot of online sources of entertainment also as a result of these feelings.  I still post on my instagram, but I foresee myself moving far away from that also.  It's a hard realization to come to because there seems to be a lot of benefit to having an online presence.  But I think it's only a vapid phantom and nothing more.  My only true success and growth has come from personal connections that I've made.  A lot of modern sources in my life feel just end up feeling shallow when I try and embrace them.  I know I'm the outlier here and I'm totally fine with that.