I'm fulfilling my purpose.

Several years ago, I wasn't quite sure who I was.

I graduated from Duke University to become a Baptist minister, and when I graduated, this was 1975.

I really didn't know who I was.

I went into the banking business in that career.

It was very stressful, and I just decided that I needed a hobby, something just to get away from the stress and over time.

Fast forward many, many years later, I've come to know that my art is my purpose and my mission.

And if it were my ministry.

I create art with purpose.

I'm getting a degree in theology and.

What am I going to do with it?

I don't know.

I was just confused.

And that's why I call this confused.

In 1974, I studied in Spain at the University of Valencia, and my roommate, who didn't speak a word of English, had taken this candid photo of me sitting on the bed like this and looking back years later, after I got the photograph and I was doing art and thought I'd explore doing a portrait, I thought I'd do a portrait of myself.

In the event that it didn't turn out right, I'd be the one that would be offended.

Nobody else would be.

I completed the painting.

But at the same time, many, many years later, I looked back on this painting and I remember where I was mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

I was in a lost place.

Over time, when I wanted to explore outside of painting.

I decided that I'd do a sculpture and I'll never forget it was a first.

It was a paper mache sculpture of a lady on a bus from waist up, and I made the paper myself and everything.

That was the beginning.

And then got involved in the business community in 95 and heard of the South Florida Super Bowl, looking a gift for a gift to give to the NFL team owners.

And I proposed a sculpture of the kicker I did quarterback.

Later in 1999, I did a sculpture for the South Florida Super Bowl.

The face is not a distinct face, no distinct facial features, and I purposely did that so as to leave the ethnicity up to the viewer.

It's a human being who is the kicker?

If it's a commission, the process really starts with actually meeting with my clients and getting a sense from them what they envision about the art that they'd like to, you know, see and communicate.

If it's going in a public space where, you know, people in the public will enjoy it for years to come.

I also do research, research about the space, its current use, as well as maybe its past use, so that in the work that's created can speak to both past and present.

And then I just sort of meditate and pray and just go, okay, so how are we going to pull this all together?

And eventually it comes together.

You know, it's not a ministry like evangelizing as much as having people have an art experience, either through art classes.

You know, I worked with kids in foster care, and I worked with adults who never have experienced creating.

Then I use the art as teaching moments, and particularly with kids and adults who don't feel like, you know, well, you know, I don't have anything to offer.

And I use the the art term, you are a limited edition.

There's only one of you.

So therefore, because there's only one of you, there's great value.

Kids in foster care that I had the privilege of working with over time.

And they did their body cast from the waist up, and I had them decide which pose they wanted to to do.

And then the interesting part about this project is That element of trust.

So they had to trust me that I was going to make sure that they were safe and that they were going to be okay.

Once the cast were done, of all the kids that were involved, then they had an opportunity to paint their body cast and to use that as a way of expressing where they are or who they are at that particular moment in time with these kids.

You know, having giving them that venue and that opportunity for self-expression, it was it was transformative.

In the mornings when I do my morning devotions and read and spend time with God, I have these poems that are dropped in my spirit and I type them.

I would type them and, and, or just sort of thoughts I would type in and you know, I said, you know, I'm going to publish these because there may be someone out there who is at a place where I am now or maybe at a place later.

And these poems might speak to them.

So my book is titled entitled Art Psalms A Compilation of poetry and art.

My paintings, my sculptures, my photography words.

We say them without knowing the impact they have.

As a boulder falls into a river's path, changes its course forever, so too can words dropped into the spirit.

Heart and mind of a listener changed their destiny.

Words.

What would they be?

Would they tear down or build up?

Would they cause pain or bring healing?

Would they bring tears of sadness or tears of gladness?

Would they bring death or life words.

And this is a photograph that of that I had created from styrofoam that I carved.

And these are the different words freedom, hope, wisdom, peace, love.

It's not so much the art that's created, but the process of the creation that is important not to minimize the final product.

But it was through the years of creating art and the process of creating the art that I discovered things about myself.

And once I discovered it, then I did not let it remain there, dormant, but brought it alive.

It's never too late to go through the process of discovery.

Each one of us has gifts inside of us and talents inside of us.

Take a moment to explore what's inside of you.

And that's what I did.

And.

And I'm so glad I did.

I there's not a day that goes by that I don't do art.