Be an artist in this moment

Years ago when I suddenly thought myself an artist my mind had never been so afire.

More than two decades ago I unexpectedly launched into painting. A trip to a famous art supply store on Canal Street in New York City was all it took. I came back with paint and brush and canvas. The cab was stuffed with tools of art.

My first painting was the silhouette of a man in a cage . . . the cage was composed of real-world chicken wire . . . The next painting featured a guy in a suit dancing himself free in the night. 

Soon after I quit my career on Wall Street and left The City . . . 

For a year or two I thought like an artist.

The Everglades shimmered to me in almost otherworldly subtle hues. To another eye it might seem a drab expanse. Not to my artist’s eye.


I recall being haunted by a dumpster against the mango-colored wall of a run-down Mexican restaurant. 


Light glancing off broken glass on the pavement could be hypnotic.


The sheen from an oily puddle at a service station stopped me in my tracks.

When you think like an artist, possibility abounds.

When chaos reigns, when things feel bleak, now I remind myself: 


Be an artist in this moment. 

I ask: 


What can I create?

The tools are no longer art paraphernalia. They are tools we all have. 

Imagination, experimentation, daring. 

And the quiet power of looking at a thing sideways . . . 

For you —

Evan Griffith
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