Art for Heart's sake

Passion versus reason

The only advice I ever recall my father giving me was “Get work that feels like a hobby, and then you’ll be happy to do it.” Or words to that effect - it was sometime ago that he said it.

I’ve had quite a variety of jobs over the years, some were unpleasant, lugging wet carpets up outdoor stadium steps to unravel and let dry - there’s something about dirty flood water dripping down your neck and heavy, smelly wool carpet that makes you feel like you’re surviving in hobbled land rather than thriving in hobby land.

Some jobs have been mentally exhausting, 4 months of 16 hour workdays on a project with another 10 in the weekends only to see the good results completely reversed within a month of me leaving the project. That one taught me that work is vanity - nothing is permanent and whatever we do some fool is likely to come along and rip it all out to create their own version of reality.

I can’t say I’ve had a lot of jobs that were hobbies, apart from a few years when I was a transformation manager which was more stimulating than downing a row of double shot espressos and more satisfying than warm, rich, gooey chocolate cake. Fortunately I didn’t drool while at work but I was bouncing off the walls at times with enthusiasm.

As you get older the opportunities to find a satisfying role where you can drop pearls of accumulated wisdom that still reduce bottlenecks, wow customers and cheer staff on tend to dry up and you find yourself living in a consultant’s cave wearing a tattered dressing gown…

All your powers are still there but somehow the galaxy has moved on and there’s a new generation fighting the same old battles but believing they are going to win them by doing the same things, using different technology and frameworks so drafty that even the emperor would realize he wasn’t wearing clothes.

As I wandered through my career, so often cleaning up after others in one form or another, I realized that hobby jobs are hard to come by… or at least hold onto. Perhaps you’ve experienced that… those glory moments that light up the our lives like fireworks, leaving a blazing afterimage on our resumes as significant events… are quite different from the damp fizzles of a normal day/week/month/year/decade...

For some of us these are the highlights we are looking for… something that shows we are contributors, a memory that we made and own, a moment in time that reminds our hearts we are alive and can achieve more than the ordinary.

Those moments can be as addicting as a viral post. Something to chase after again and again. If you’ve never had that adrenaline rush from work… then I hope you’ve had it in other areas of your life as it is a thrill to ride the edge of chaos and not crash.

Life is a journey that’s seldom linear

The problem with having great moments in work is enduring the boring bits in-between as we wait for the next moment to arrive. Or we have to manufacture them which requires resources and opportunities.

I’d love to go from one great gig to another… though I’d probably be exhausted and give up after gig 5… great moments normally involve lots of stress, risk and having to manage the emotions and beliefs of hundreds of people… not counting the amount of coffee that needs to be consumed…

There was a group in the 80’s called Talk Talk… amazing musicians who went from pop to really experimental music that pushed the limits of both the patience of their record company and the musicians who came in to play on their last couple of albums. Anyway they had a hit called Life’s what you make it… I’m not sure that’s a true idiom as life is less like a road to drive upon and more like a blind driver that mows everyone down.

Trying to lever life into the place we want it is less about gaining something and more about learning what to lose.

My eldest son has been going on some great walks in Europe lately and each time he goes his pack gets smaller as he removes anything that is not essential. He’s learned that he can walk further if he removes as much weight as possible.

This is a lesson that many who are viewed as successful apply. To achieve a goal it is less about desire and more about sacrifice.

What are you willing to give up in order to be successful?

Some sacrifice their health, some their families, some their chocolate cake… because it’s actually impossible to have your cake and eat it. If you don’t eat the cake it goes stale, if you eat it there is no cake… pick one.

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
Michelangelo

Passion versus Reason

Is passion unreasonable? Is reason dispassionate?

When my father encouraged me to find a job that would also be a hobby I wonder if he imagined that one day I would be passionate about how to untangle a broken business by using What ifs in Excel. I’m sure he didn’t expect me to turn a hobby into a career, rather he meant turn a career into a hobby.

Most of my life my hobbies have revolved around consuming. Reading was my first love… to escape into magical realms, this was followed by video games where I could participate in magical realms.

Consuming is fine… you’re currently consuming this post and hopefully will gain some creative energy from these digital calories.

However, living a life of consumption can be unfulfilling. In the first real job I had they gave us newbies a handbook which on the first page explained the purpose of work as fulfilling the opportunity to contribute to society. Not sure if the pyramid workers got the same handbook but they have contributed to thousands of years of society and sparked the imaginations of millions.

How do you contribute to society?

That was the question I asked myself. The great projects I’d done at the turn of the century were never going to return and designing communication systems or delivering strategic management is empty calories. What we design today is superseded next year. Think of all the people who spent years studying only to have in an instant AI steal their chance at contributing to society.

Most of my career has been to do with reason, rational analytical work that created unarguable logic to do or to not do activities. The passion came when playing with large groups of people and unlocking their energy and capabilities.

What happens in life when we begin questioning our existence and what we are leaving behind to grow is that we arrive at the weigh station.

The weigh station is where we weigh up all our beliefs and patterns of life and determine if we are willing to pay the price of sacrifice. Some chose not to and seek to continue their pattern, others dump the loads and move forward down the uncertain path.

For me, I chose to contribute emotion and passion to society via art.

I was not an artist, I have no talent, just a stubborn determination to follow passion and through that passion let it seep out to others.

A trail in the journey

After teaching myself how to paint with pastels while supporting myself with a day job of management consulting I finally have begun exhibiting my art, so here’s how its going.

Last weekend (for those reading in the future that is the first weekend of November 2025) I entered the local arts trail. This is an event promoted by our local council that includes up to 140 artists in the city and surrounds who open up their homes and studios for people to come and visit, look at their art and possible purchase it.

Last year about $500,000.00 sold over 2 weekends - which is a drop in the bucket of over a trillion USD that is spent on the arts each year. However for some of the local artists this is like Black Friday or Christmas shopping for them - one event can keep them going for some time.

This year word on the street is that sales are subdued due to the cost of living and heavy redundancies we’ve had in the region this past year.

However knowing that it would be a tough time I still went ahead and exhibited

Here’s some photos of my garage/studio set up.

Saturday I tracked 41 visitors - and sold 1 framed art print… ah…. I said to my wife… maybe I won’t give up on the day job just yet…

However of those 41 I knew that the average arts trail visitor will go 6 or 7 sites in a day - so that made me feel pretty good that out of 120+ sites they had picked me to go to.

The feedback was great - many identified with the emotion in motion I seek to capture. But like social media, likes don’t pay the grocery bills.

However one man stood for ages looking at the following painting of a little girl twirling.

I explained that I left the construction of the painting showing, the gouache under painting soaking through and bits of pastel marks and dust on the sides as I really liked the effect, both he and his wife did too. They asked me to put a hold on it while they thought about it.

Sunday - first thing in the morning the couple called me and bought this one and another - which was delightful. So I have now broken even with all the set up costs for the arts trail…

… if I put my analysis cap on I’d probably reason that art is not a fast or great way to make a living… in fact it doesn’t make a living.

However… my heart burns to keep going… to talk with other artists who came to talk shop with me… the young woman who looked at the colours used in painting a dancer’s arm and who said “this just makes so much sense to me” the people who came from significant distances away to check out my art and talk to me about it… that is satisfaction I rarely got in my day job.

Will art move from passion to a reasonable income… I don’t know… I suspect that journey is still one I need to explore… the sacrifice of art is the certainty of a regular income…

… yet I think we all want to be more than someone who gets a weekly/fortnightly/monthly paycheck. Within us all is a passion to be something more than ordinary… to contribute… to make others feel alive…

For me the path is art… I hope you follow your passion and that the sacrifice is worth it.

As for the arts trail… I have another weekend to go so hopefully the economy recovers during the week and maybe some who came last week will return and take home something that touched their heart…

After all art is for the heart

Thanks for reading

Special thanks to karen nicholas and Neela 🌶️ for supporting my coffee buzz - I appreciate you both very much 🤗☕