2016 GOAL TO BE RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE WORLD'S TOP RISING ARTISTS

As my 59th birthday approached, I begin to ask a lot of questions to myself about my life, what was left of it, where I was, and what I wanted....what was REALLY the most important things.  Since 2001 I have dedicated my life to become an artist with the mission to give the world more Light, Hope, and Love through my paintings.  I was sitting at the Charlotte Art League in Fayetteville, looking down on the painting I just created, "The Glory Tree."  I started getting compliments from the people walking past it.  I studied the work, wondering what in the world did I do that it was drawing such attention.  The tree seemed ready to burst with this triumphant shout to the world.....what?  I looked at it ...then this popped in my mind.  It seemed to be saying like, "I FOUND MYSELF! THIS IS WHAT I'M SUPPOSE TO DO!"  And I wondered, what in the heck was a tree suppose to do???? Then it hit me like a born idiot with a sudden Einstein cosmo formula conceived..... That tree was me!  It was saying, this is what I am suppose to do.  I am suppose to be an artist.  Soon as I thought that, my eyes went to the right to the bright, Light emitting sun....That sun represents the Divine! I look at the long wavering lines as it spread throughout the landscape of my painting and tree. Then I had a second revelation, I AM SUPPOSE TO BE AN ARTIST TO UNVEIL GOD'S ESSENCE THROUGH NATURE.  With that summation, I will never forget. I lifted my eyes skyward and I even think I spoke it aloud.  "God, if this is your intention for me, I will make a deal with you.  I will continue doing art long as you keep finding the means for me to continue to do so.  And from that moment in 2001, I have had no idea what my income would be from month to month.  A couple of times it got really close......but always, literally out of no where, a sale or sales would come true.  It is Dec. 2015....I am still painting.  It is painting that is my mission.  I decided to put on hold as first priorities of my writing and Waccamaw - the Series, because it is my art I want to be remembered and mission that was achieved as far and wide and known as I am able to do.  So, 2016 on Jan. 1st, I will from that moment give my all that my work may make as much impact on people's lives and art world as I possibly can.  I will only go on Facebook about 1 time a day and do my posts and painting unveilings with the blog, tweeter, and other art related sites that will contribute to my mission.   Art comes first.  When I am taking a break between the paintings, I will write on the blog and on a number of my novels I have laying around.  I have a dozen un-submitted novels laying around in rough draft form written in the late 80's.  Instead of updating these, I will keep them in the time period they were written.  I couldn't do do all the research to get all of "the day" happenings in those books.  It is a great blast to the past and gives the younger people a glimpse of life back then.  Most of the books are kind of drama/horror stories...ordinary people suddenly find themselves in extraordinary events...slow building....tea kettle plots that builds and builds till it literally explodes in the last quarter of the tales.

I hope as I begin this new phase of my life that I may pick up followers along the way to share my journey.  I am so grateful for the thousands across the world.  And I so love when I receive questions from art design students from around the world, doing a paper on my art style.  This really lets me know my work is being seen...and of course....one of my biggest fears is that after my death, my work will not be washed away from their prints in the sand by the first wave that comes along....  Several years ago I was at an antique monthly "flea market" like show in Charlotte and found one of the vendors with a dozen paintings by a deceased artist stacked up with a hand scrawled note:  10 paintings for $100.   
I was in shock.  Just out of principle I bought one of the paintings of the lady and hung it in my home.  I kept thinking is that me one day???  After my death, two months later my website is removed for lack of payment.  My several hundred paintings will be placed by a dumpster and picked up by a vendor to sell at next month's show. OH MY GOD.........  Could you imagine?  I felt horrified for that woman.  After I write this, I'm going to sit for a couple of minutes and just gaze at it.