Discover Timeless Art

I remember always being creative, exploring theater, music, and art. I was in so many clubs—photography, art, theater—but also debate and math, while being okay at sports. Out of all of that, theater was “my thing.” I was even in college theatrical productions while still in high school. I wanted so badly to be an actor. So off to college I went for Theater.

Six years later, I was a college graduate! Can you believe that someone could go to college for Theater and graduate with a degree in Economics?

While in college I met a girl and fell in love. We started a family together, bought a home, and became “responsible adults.” You learn you have to pay the mortgage, the car payment, and put food on the table while raising three children. So off to work I went, while going back to school to get an MBA.

I lost my creativity during those years—while getting my degrees, raising a family, and supporting them. Life can stifle creativity as one learns to color within the lines. Don’t get me wrong, I was very happy. I had a wonderful family and amazing friends, and I love them all. School had been done for quite some time, and the kids are all grown into their own lives. But something was missing.

Then, as life goes, a strange thing happened. A friend who probably knew me better than I knew myself stopped by for a visit. They walked in, handed me art supplies, and said, “You need to paint.” They said, “You have creativity in you that needs to get out.”

A spark.

It became my new hobby. I painted trees and flowers for relaxation while continuing to run a Harley-Davidson business. Across the street from the dealership in Bellingham was a window replacement company that was smashing old, century-old windows they had replaced. I rushed over and asked if I could have them, and loaded them into my truck. Windows became my canvas—and they already came with a frame. It was as if the universe was guiding me.

My craft became more abstract, invoking emotions with colors and patterns. My tools became random items I would find. I learned to pull paint with dental floss. I learned how to bleed colors into each other by changing the paint’s viscosity. I gave these paintings as gifts to friends and family.

Then came a call: “Your paintings change. You have to see this.”

Unknowingly, they had placed one of my paintings on a window—in a window. In the morning, when the sun rose, the painting would change color with the light shining through, peaking with the brightness of the sunshine.

 My paintings were breathing!

When you paint on canvas, you paint toward yourself. The background first, then closer to yourself. On glass, you paint the opposite: you paint away from yourself. Design first, then covering it up with the next layer, then the next. When the painting tells you it’s done, you only then discover how close to your vision it became. It’s part of the universal unknowing that is channeled into the art. The layers of colors are hidden until light illuminates them and breathes them to life.

Art is in me. It always has been. It was dormant for many, many years. Once it was re-sparked, it would not be quenched. I see beauty everywhere now, even as I observe others in their hurried pace, walking past and not seeing what’s right in front of them. It saddens me.

We are all creative. We can all remember being children and dancing when music comes on. We can all remember coloring outside the lines.

If I can say just one thing to anyone, it’s this: Start coloring outside the lines.

Rick James.