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Well, it looks like I’m going back to school! Not because I need another degree, not because I’m looking for a new career, and certainly not because I miss taking exams. I’m going back because I want to learn something new, improve my artistic abilities, and rediscover some of the excitement that comes with being a student. Recently, I decided to stay with my mother a little longer. She suggested that I enroll in the OLLIE program at California State University, Fullerton. OLLIE stands for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a continuing education program designed for adults who have already completed...

I’ve always believed that being an artist doesn’t mean you have to stay inside one particular box. A painter doesn’t have to spend every waking hour painting. A musician doesn’t have to think only in terms of songs. A writer doesn’t have to live entirely on the printed page. Sometimes exploring another art form is exactly what brings you back to your main art with a new perspective. Throughout my life, I have explored painting, drawing, graphic design, writing, music, video and other forms of creative expression. I don’t necessarily see these as separate careers. To me, they are different...

At the Art Walk last Friday, a man who had been drinking came up to my booth and made an interesting accusation. He claimed that because I use my personal stories and struggles to draw attention to mental health awareness, I was “selling out.” But am I? Let’s take a look at what selling out actually means. I represent no organization or corporation. Nobody is paying me a large amount of money to control what I paint, write, draw, or record. Nobody owns my story. Nobody tells me what subjects I am allowed to discuss. My artwork, books, and music...

There’s no doubt about it: selling art can sometimes feel a lot like gambling. You never know where the money is going to come from, who is going to buy something, or how much you’re going to make. You can spend weeks preparing for an art show and lose money. You can break even. You can make a modest profit. And every once in a while, you hit the jackpot. Art is personal and subjective. What one person loves, another person may walk right past. For an artist like myself, that means trying different things and experimenting to discover what...

Recently my brother told me that he was upset to see a campaign poster for Barack Obama displayed in the White House art gallery. His argument was that it was not really great art. It was propaganda. But was it? When most people hear the word propaganda, they probably imagine something far more sinister: a dictatorship controlling newspapers, posters, radio, television and public imagery in order to manipulate people. We think of Nazi Germany, Soviet political posters or other governments using art and media to promote an official ideology. But propaganda does not necessarily have to come from a dictatorship....