More good reads!

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart by Gordon Livingston

"The three components of happiness are something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to."

How many of us are living with all three??Those of you that are doing some type of creativeness I know are full filling at least two of these, hopefully...something to do and something to look forward to, if you are not then you need to re-think your creative outlook. You should get up every morning with an intention...something you are going to research, something you are going to create or something that you are passionate about that you are going to turn into an object of art.

"we are responsible for most of what happens to us"

"Happiness is not simply the absence of despair.  It is an affirmative state in which our lives have both meaning and pleasure."  Bruce Poon Tip

Living Big, Pam Grout

"What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail?"

"Not to dream more boldly may turn out to be , in view of present realities, simply irresponsible" George Leonard

Patch Adams "don't live in other people's ruts".

"we are visitors on this planet...during this period we must try to do something goo, something useful without lives" Dalai Lama

I am fortunate to have all three, something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to and I wish that for all of you.

"There is no greater waste than to live an ordinary life.  There is nothing more tragic than a person who has lost their magic" Mark Eberra

All of us have a choice to be Happy, it is choices, choices, choices......make them wisely.

What and why do people buy?

I recently was reading Fine Art Connoisseur and there was an article from B. Eric Rhoads, publisher and he hit on some very basic facts.

"Though it is impossible to specify exactly why an artwork sells, I do know that when you buy a piece of art, you are usually buying what author Malcolm Gladwell calls the tipping point - the accumulation of 10,000 hours of experience.  You are buying the artists personality and passion, years of mentorship, study and experimentation, thousands of failures, moments of frustration and joy, and worries about how to make a living".

"Today more than ever, we tend to get caught up in status and resale values, when we should actually focus on the fact that art is personal, reflective of the person who created it, and appropriate for the person buying it.  Unlike most non-essential purchases, artworks are forms of expression and intercommunication that live on long after the maker and the consumer".

"You are also buying what that artwork does for you.  Its stimulation of an emotion or a memory is surely worth more than its investment value, though it is nice to imagine that someday your heirs may benefit tangibly from that value."

"So what are you buying, really?  I am not sure it can be articulated definitively, but you'll know it - feel it - when it happens."