The Creative Sweet Spot

September 14, 2026September 14, 2026 / still a dreamer / 5 Comments

For most of us, our lives were built around the security of routine. For us creatives, routine can become a prison. Where is the sweet spot between the necessity of routine and stepping outside it to create? I’m working at finding that balance.

It’s an established fact that children thrive on routine. In our earliest years, it provides stability, safety, and a kind of certainty that life is predictable.

Photo thanks to: Arthur Krijgsman / pexels

School provides more of the same. Our earliest schedules prescribe the beginning of our day, the order of subjects, teachers and classes, and a 3 o’clock bell. In time, we evolve to work – get on the train, the subway, in the car to arrive at work at 9, finish at 5 (or some variation.)

The one-time comfort of routine can easily become a sturdy fence of limitation around us. Even when schedules shift, there may still be an insistent subtext.

Where and when is the space to be creative? Does it have to wait until the end of our day or the weekend? I still struggle with this even though I freelance from home. While I continue to mostly work a traditional workweek for clients, I do have some flexibility.

Yet I wonder – can I just leave what I’m doing at the computer and go draw or write in my studio for hours at a time? Can I just leave my desk and go walking and take photographs? And as crazy as this sounds, can I take a Monday-Friday “workday” and spend it cleaning, or cooking and baking – instead of doing something work-related?

Changing our habits is how we grow. To create is to step outside our comfort zone, to let go of what feels safe and secure, and take a leap, of whatever size it may be. To break a habit is to rewire our brain, one which, for many of us, has been wired for life to fit a schedule.

Breaking that kind of habit can be a challenge, and while I wish it were otherwise, it often still is for me. I’m pushing through, little step by little step, often grappling with guilt, but it’s the only way out. I actually have no idea what my sweet spot will look like, only that it can’t be this, and for now, every little push has to be enough.

Do you struggle with breaking the habit of routine to find your creative self?

The Frenchie, the Gull, and the Fish

July 13, 2026July 13, 2026 / still a dreamer / 6 Comments

It’s just a minor seaside disagreement as to the ownership of one small colorful fish. Entitled “My Fish!”, this is my original art available as a giclée print, in my Etsy shop.

For those not familiar, I once illustrated Just Frenchies magazine for 10 years. From this, I grew a small business focused on my French Bulldog art, eventually moving to a shop on Etsy. While this is not the direction where I am headed now, I continue to share some of my French Bulldog art, terrier art, carousel horses, etc, as cards and prints.

Feel free to stop by my shop!

The Drawing Process – A Manatee

June 29, 2026 / still a dreamer / 5 Comments

Does everyone’s drawing process start out the same – with an idea, and some idea of how you want it to look?

In this case, I did a couple preliminary sketches in pen and ink to get a feel for the manatee’s contours, and then went to a full page to do an underlying sketch in pencil. I figured I’d clean it up and proceed with what I had in mind. What you see isn’t that.

Then I realized what I’d had in mind was never going to happen. I decided to start sketching with just one brush and my watercolors and go from there. See what this little manatee wanted.

Letting one’s art or music or writing evolve is, I believe, what creating is all about. I’m not sure why, after all this time, it still surprises me that the result is nothing like what I imagined. Yet I like it.

I often come back and look at the drawing a ridiculous number of times, as if it might disappear, or maybe I never did it at all. But each time I see it, I smile.

It’s always a shade of me I’m still getting to know. Do you know that feeling?

p.s. Also known as sea cows, the manatee is one of the gentlest creatures on the planet, and a threatened or endangered species, depending on their location.

The Spotter

June 12, 2026 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Charlie is an outstanding bug spotter.

Rather than attack an accidental intruder, he sits nearby and watches, waiting to catch my eye. Word seems to be out among the bugs that if they can make themselves seen, I will surely take them back outside.

Charlie is definitely on board with the effort.

Unlike dogs, who, in the face of a curious bee or wasp will often snap at it or bite it, Charlie simply moves his position, waiting for me to notice the odd little dance going on between him and the six or eight-legger. If Charlie were a dog, I suspect he would be a Pointer.

Seeing Art – Princeton University Art Museum

March 24, 2026 / still a dreamer / Leave a comment

What kind of museum do you want to go to? What do you want to see?

“Fish” – Zhang Hongtu, 1985, Acrylic on Canvas

For me, as an artist, photographer, writer, I want to see art. I want to see what will make my eyes open wider.

“Moonrise” – George Inness, 1888, Oil on canvas

I want to see what will touch my very being and remind me of who I am. Because in today’s intense, fast-moving world, it can be easy to sometimes forget.

“Moon Beam” – Pat Steir, 2005, Oil on canvas

I want to try and understand another human being who looks at the same thing as me, but sees it in such a vastly different way.

L to R – “Tiger Drinking from A Stream” – Yumashiro Yuhi, October 1761, Ink, color, gold pigment on silk; “Bridge to Heaven 2006.2” – Arnold Chang, 2006, Ink on paper; “An Immortal’s Abode Above the Clouds” – Gong Xian, mid 1680s, ink on silk.

I want to see what someone creates who has a totally different life and totally different experiences than me.

“To Be Sold” – Titus Kaphar, 2018, Oil on canvas with rusted nails. References the sale of 6 enslaved persons belonging to a former president of the university on this site, 1761-1766.

I want to get my heart cracked open a little.

“A.M.X.” – Nancy Grossman, 1969-1970, Wood with nailed and stitched leather.

I want to go home and keep thinking for a while, not just of what I saw, but of what the artist stated their intentions were.

“Naga” – Tuan Andrew Nguyen, 2024, Primarily pounded and polished brass plates made from unexploded bomb metal and artillery shells.

I want to take in these feelings from another’s visions, and I want them to call to me, wash over me, not to drown me, but to pull me … me … to the surface.

“Painting” – Willem De Kooning, 1948, Enamel and oil on canvas.

This museum visit is the first chance I’ve had to get out and see art in a while. I’d forgotten how intense an experience it can be. How wonderful.

“Self-Portrait” – Robert Mapplethorpe, 1972, Photo silkscreen

The art pictured here is all from the recently reopened (10/31/2025) Princeton University Art Museum, located on the Princeton, NJ campus. The construction took three years, and was built on the same site where the previous museum had existed and was then razed.

“Dogariya – The Queen’s Guard, from the series Anima Project” – Marcia Kure, 2022, Kola nut, indigo, and watercolor on board.

The PUAM houses both classical and contemporary art from around the world. Art pictured here is only from two small special exhibits, one on photography and another on Willem de Kooning, and a larger exhibit of pieces recently donated or promised upon the reopening. Some of what I photographed was in the hallways connecting exhibits. One could spend days there. I’ll be going back.