WATERCOLOR SKETCH BY PAUL BOECHER©

“I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.”  Michelangelo

When you have a passion for the work you do, it can be all consuming.  When you’re an artist, the work is a daily affair – an unending chasing the light, sketching out the window of your mind, drawing on napkins and any other available surface.  An artist is a different breed.  Yet without art the lives of those who enjoy it would never be the same.

My dad was a man of few words and when he found out I was going to marry an artist, he asked me why? After we’d been married a while and my ad man husband had changed jobs several times (a common occurrence in that industry) my dad asked him when he was going to get a real job.

To many who don’t understand the artist’s mind or his zeal to make art, it can seem to be a sort of chasing the wind.  In today’s world, where digital art is readily available at little cost, an original piece of art doesn’t seem to carry the value it once did.  We think nothing of paying $500 for work done to our cars, but think twice about spending a few hundred dollars on a painting that will withstand the ages.  It’s rare for someone to actually make a living as an artist.

Gone are the days of Michelangelo, who apparently considered himself a man of little worth.  There are still the Picassos, in search of something shocking or outside the box. There will always be artists.  God gave some this gift for a purpose.  There may be new ways of doing it.  There will always be advances and changes, but there will always be a need for it.  Those who possess the talent to take us to a different world, if even for a moment, are desperately needed in times like this.