More Than Art

I create works of art that I hope can make people a little quieter.

But behind this simple intention, there may be a larger way of looking at life:

Less unnecessary fear.

Less attachment to outcomes.

Less rehearsing the losses that have not yet happened.

More of our energy returned to the life that is happening now.

This is what I have come to think of as my Peace of Mind Project.

Calligraphy is one way I explore it.

Ink paintings of old trees are another.

The quiet presence of jade is another.

And, perhaps unexpectedly, even some of the things I say to my children belong to the same project.

When I tell them that money is a tool rather than a destination, or that something sincerely given in love does not become meaningless simply because circumstances later change, I am trying to give them the same thing I seek through my art:

a little less fear about life.

I do not believe that peace of mind means eliminating uncertainty, loss, disappointment, or difficulty. These are simply part of being alive.

Perhaps peace comes instead from learning not to spend our whole lives trying to control them.

To accept what is happening.

To give what we genuinely want to give.

To appreciate what is here.

And to leave some room in the mind for stillness.

That is why I no longer see my work simply as making paintings or calligraphy.

Art happens to be the language I know best—the language I am most willing to spend years practicing, discovering, and refining.

But the purpose may be larger than art itself.

Perhaps a painting can offer a quiet moment.

A piece of calligraphy can give the eyes somewhere to rest.

A small piece of jade can sit quietly in a pocket or a hand.

And a simple sentence spoken to a child can sometimes stay with them for a lifetime.

Different forms, perhaps.

But one intention:

to help us spend a little less of our precious life worrying about life, and a little more of it actually living.