I recently overheard my wife telling my mom 

She's right, of course,  I loved taking art classes all through Junior & Senior High with Esther Bennet and Calvin Jones.  At home, a photographer mother meant there was a darkroom walled off one end of my bedroom.  My term papers had photo graphics researched from library books.  And even though majoring in science, I crammed in as many art classes at the University of Washington as I could afford. 

 

Many Artists include their list of shows.  I have some of course, but Art was my release and recreation while I pursued the safety of a more secure career path.  My first show was with two high school friends in the Auburn Public Library.   I also had a one man show in Sea-Tac Airport and entered a competition sponsored by Boeing where my dad worked.  In college I teamed up with a dorm-mate & we were able to subsidize costs of art supplies with a small silkscreen print business until graduation.  A career in art like his although a romantic notion seemed too risky to me, hence I only pursued it as an avocation.

An artists way is a constant feature in both my daily and work life.  On weekends, we built (sculpted?) a log house, learning the art of shaping logs with a chainsaw.  Household items and decoration came from classes in pottery and water color.  A friend who worked in his family's print shop taught me poster printing using wood block type and other handset type on a vintage Chandler-Price Printing press. 

A digital world became part of my artistic toolbox in the 80's.  I used BASIC to animate a logo for a family software product, and entered the world of rapid Artistic illumination provided by first Harvard Graphics then Powerpoint charts.  My co-workers depended on me to shape charts into telling stories that numbers alone couldn't.  Old stories created in new ways through the blending of words, numbers, pictures in a fraction of the time needed for older processes, able to change nearly as fast as my evolving imagination.  An environmental & personal health educator, my talents were often called on to illustrate and simplify complex health concepts through illustrative metaphorical phrasing.  One, a simple chart in the early 1990's projecting HIV/AIDS deaths towering over all war time fatalities since 1900 I hoped would help stem a tide of ignorance and prejudice as devastating as any war.

Three new Artistic Tools arrived for this millenium replacing my 35mm camera and tiny little darkrooms.  Digital cameras!  Photoshop software!  Inkjet Printers!   What a combination, creating giant posters and signs first for an employer, then for our own tutoring center overseas in China. Blending images and words together in ways to delight children and draw in their parents sharing our western culture in an eastern framework.  Telling stories about holidays, activities and showcasing our students achievements. The tools got smaller and smaller, as the ability to display got larger and larger, petite smartphones, tablets and giant TVs allowed our little school to create, tell, record and illustrate stories with our students.