In fact, to my critical eye, he is one of the most talented photogs we have currently residing in Edmonds, regardless of his youth.
Which is ironic, for I first met him while working with a high school to rebuild their theatre company. He found himself as a (set) dress designer. Indeed, he quickly became our lead dress designer.
Many was the time, in the five shows I directed there, that I would ask what he planned for some aspect of the set dress.
He would throw out a remark or two which, while clearly making sense to him, I simply could not visualize.
Nevertheless, I had grown accustomed to the quality of his work. So, I would swallow hard and wait to see what transpired. Of course, it always met and quite often exceeded all our expectations.
Yet, as talented as he is as an artist, he ran into a dry spell this spring with his photography: He didn't jury into a show that he had expected to. He didn't make the cut at a local summer market. There were other disappointments.
All artists know this awful time. Resources get taken away. People get ill. Programs get canceled. Funding dries up. Coups happen. Or, worse, the artist loses inspiration. The Muse no longer speaks.
And then, worst of all, a constant drip, drip, drip of thoughts begin eroding self-confidence: Maybe I should give this up. Maybe I'm being ridiculous here. Why did I ever think I could be an artist?
Yet, awful as these dry spells are, they always end. So, knowing this, we just have to get through them.
The alternative is giving up our art. And that, as every artist knows, is experiencing the death of a loved one.
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