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Silhouettes of pine trees glow against the deep indigo sky with a waning gibbous moon illuminating the scene. Hints of red are streaking across the nearby ocean as the glow of sunrise is about to blast its color into the atmosphere. Sounds of seagulls whining, waves crashing, and a foghorn seem unusually loud on this quiet Maine morning on Schoodic Point, the lesser-known and more spectacular branch of Acadia National Park.

Rockefeller’s Place

A giant Tudor home with exposed beams, built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is my home for the coming week. Though new on the inside, with modern conveniences, the exterior looks as it did when Rockefeller donated the building to the park he loved so much. Here with me in the surrounding rooms and apartments in this former military base are a group of passionate painters.

Sharing our love of painting and the desire to fill our canvases with bright fall colors, waves crashing against the rocks, lobster boats, lighthouses, and quaint fishing villages, we gathered here on Friday night, in time for a full moon and some nocturne painting after cocktails. The air is crisp and cool, the sky is clear, and the weather is expected to be perfect.

Happily on My Own

I’m not sure if it’s the pride of doing something entirely on my own in the midst of my busy life, but this event, which I call Fall Color Week, is my own. It’s just me. No helpers, no staff, no photographers or videographers. Though I love their company, I also love knowing that two times a year I do my own painters’ event for 50 or 100 people with no help. Oh, everyone steps in, but if they didn’t, it would still go smoothly.

This event has become one of my favorites. Each event has its own flair, its own culture, its own regulars. Some attend more than one event, and some prefer the exotic trips to Cuba, New Zealand, or Africa. But at this event, I’m in the exact same boat as my attending friends. In the Adirondacks, I sleep in my own bed every night and am able to kiss the wife and kids goodnight. Here, Facetime or e-mail are my only options.

Rarely Alone

When we held our first event here, I had the realization that I’m rarely alone. I can’t remember a night alone in my own home. Usually, I’m the one leaving. And though I’m with friends all day here, as we have breakfast and dinner together and we paint together all day, after we finish our evenings of portraits or music or jokes, I return to my room and I experience being alone with my thoughts.

Those who follow this Coffee thing know that silence and quiet are worth getting up for before everyone else arises. Even here, though I’ll be walking out to host breakfast in the next hour or so, I awaken early, with the dark outside, the spooky and soothing silence.

Oh, how I cherish my time at home, my family, my busy life, my insane business life, my columns, articles, marketing videos, magazines, and so much more … but they take their toll, and having this respite, before and after our days here, is special time too.

Hard to Leave, Great to Be Here

I have to admit, though I was looking forward to coming here, to being with old and new friends and painting every day, I had a hard time getting on that airplane and saying goodbye to my family after so much time away in my busy season. Last week it was Russia, and I’m probably just getting over the lag. Yet now that I’m here, I can say with enthusiasm that there is nothing like painting all day every day, seeing new and different scenery, painting alongside others, and developing new friendships. It doesn’t take long to bond.

Benefits are like a horn of plenty. After just two days, I’m tuned up and painting well, and by the end of the week, after two or three canvases a day, I’ll return with a fresh catch for my gallery, and I’ll be painting at my best. It’s the inspiration of the place, the people, the color. It’s also the break … time away, time to myself, time with friends, time singing at night and playing music.

Absolute Magic

As much as I write, I cannot capture in words the magic that happens here during this week. It’s one of those “you have to be there” moments. And it’s different each year, with new stories. Much like the movie Same Time Next Year, where a couple meets for dinner and catches up about their year … every year. I am blessed to hear about kids, families, adventures, and of course painting. I feel blessed, and I wish you could have been here to experience it.

Well, coffee awaits, I have to walk to the lodge to get mine. Everyone will be gathered for breakfast. I’ll make some announcements, some folks will have some ideas or painting tips to share, I’ll tell everyone where we’re painting today … and then there will be about 60 of us lined up painting together — aside from some who may go off to their own secret spots.

Treat Yourself

Time for yourself is critical. I’ve said it before … put on your own mask before helping those around you. You need oxygen. We all do. Find a way. Even a quiet corner and getting up an hour before everyone else can be a gift to yourself.

If you happen to be in the area today and you see a row of painters with big smiles on their faces … beep the horn and say hello!

SLAMMMMMM!!!!

As I opened the door, I was greeted by the nasty smell of black mold in the air, a smell so thick my eyes instantly started to water and I wanted to put my handkerchief over my nose.

I flicked on the light, and the single fluorescent bulb dangling from a cord began to buzz loudly — and my suspicions of mold were confirmed visually. The once-white walls were black with mold, the paint peeling, and the plaster crumbling from moisture.

An old Soviet-era refrigerator stood guard at the front of the huge room, doors wide open, and the smell of Freon and decades of food gone bad mixed with the smell of mold.

At the back of the room, there was a stained old iron sink, equal to the ones I’ve seen at the worst gas stations, with flies swarming around its leaking water supply.

A door by the sink leads to the restroom. As I step in, the rotting floor gives slightly under my weight and I see the 1970s yellow floral linoleum is water-damaged and peeling.

Formerly beautiful green ceramic tiles barely hang on to the walls of the shower. Many have already fallen and the rest are sticking out, making the walls uneven.

The throne room, well, let’s just say it was beyond disgusting.

The place I’ve just entered is an art studio, with 20-foot ceilings, 20-foot-long walls, a once-trendy 1970s-era vinyl floor, and a row of giant, 10-foot-tall north-facing windows.

The Home of Great Artists

This studio and 26 others like it have been the temporary homes of some of the world’s great master artists, and they are where some of Russia’s most important museum masterpieces have been painted.

“Welcome to your home,” says my host. “We have given you our best.” This is to be my home for the next three nights, but he says, “If not good enough, we can get room in local hotel for you.”

I’m feeling instantly conflicted.

I know these people have made an effort to get me into one of these coveted studio spaces.

I know this is a special place where great paintings have been done and great artists have lived.

I know my host put out his own hard-earned money to have me there.

I don’t want to be ungrateful, and though I love the idea and romance of staying in one of these old studios, I also know doing so will test my limits. But because mama taught me to be kind, no matter what, I say…

“This is wonderful. I’m honored to stay here. Thank you.”

Busted in a Lie?

Have you ever had one of those moments when you knew you were lying through your teeth because you didn’t want to offend someone?

Though I wanted the experience of being there, I could not fathom the idea of breathing that moldy air for three nights.

Keep in mind that I had just been on a luxury trip (our Fine Art Connoisseur Fine Art Trip to Russia), spending 10 days in the finest hotels in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Stark Contrast

The contrast between the luxury hotels and this studio was massive … the hotels had heated marble floors, thick robes, and beds to sink into that surrounded you like a giant cuddle … versus having to have your shoes on at every moment so your feet don’t touch the floor, waiting 20 minutes for the hot water in the shower, and sleeping on a sagging Soviet era-military cot that wasn’t long enough to stretch out in, with a thin lumpy mattress and hard springs. Plus long nights shivering because of the thin blanket, and needing to tuck my water glass into a ziplock bag so the bugs don’t land on it, and putting my clothes in a plastic bag to keep them from the mold.

This was a mindset moment.

This was a time when I had to rapidly shift my thinking … was I going to be a spoiled American and allow this to ruin my experience?

During that first miserable night of tossing and turning and shivering and waking to the feeling of mold in my lungs and the smell of cigarette smoke and turpentine from the neighboring studio, I convinced myself that I needed to move to a local hotel.

But daylight has a way of changing our perspective.

Once I got through the somewhat difficult task of getting the shower to work, then got dressed and ready in the freezing, unheated room, I could see the light streaming through the giant windows, filling the studio with amazing light.

This Is Truly an Amazing Place

As I walked outside, my first view was of a painter in the distance using a Russian easel, set up next to a quaint old wooden cabin and painting the distant poplar trees, in full fall colors, by the lake.

I quickly forgot my troubles and realized I was in plein air heaven.

“Oh, you speak English?” said a man who was painting as I walked out the door into the warm morning sunlight. “Sergi is my name. I was ship’s captain in America. Now I’m painter.”

My New Friend Sergi

Sergi was from the East of Russia, so far away it took him and his friends longer to get to this place than it took me from America. He quickly introduced me to his friends, all painters. Then he took me into their studio to show me their paintings from the week. Dozens hung on the walls, and all were high-quality.

Moments later I united with my host, a great master painter and instructor from the Surikov institute, part of the Russian Academy of Art, and a friend since 2004. I was there to paint at the Academic Dacha and in the surrounding area as his guest.

What If We Had This in the United States?

Imagine for a moment if such a place had existed in America, where all the great masters would gather and spend summers together. You would have Wyeth, Redfield, Rockwell, Payne, Bierstadt, Cole, and Church. Imagine if they’d had summer cabins nearby, and they lived there much of the year.

In Russia, the Academic Dacha was created by the Artists Union. Because they knew that plein air painting was critical to an artist’s development, they sent their students here to spend summers painting outdoors. These students would be around great masters who were also there to paint all summer. The surrounding cabins were owned by the great masters of Russia past … Repin, Levitan, Surikov, Shiskin … and they all painted on the property where I was staying. This tradition has taken place for over 200 years, in this same place, with every generation of artists.

Did I mention this is plein air heaven?

Among Painting Legends

It’s humbling to know I am standing and painting exactly where these amazing Russian legends had painted summer after summer.

The property, probably about 50 acres, is a postcard view at every turn. It’s poised on a beautiful lake, with a wonderful old bridge going across a small river (Repin did a famous painting there) and a little red house where Repin stayed that later became a small museum featuring all these artists’ work. The trees are changing color and are amazing.

A Home for Royalty

Next to the red house is an octagonal yellow house, built to give royalty a place to stay when traveling between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Inside, there is stained glass so intensely rich in color that the walls were flooded with vibrating hues unlike any I’d ever seen. Catherine the Great came here often. She loved spending time around the artists, I’m told. So did the czars.

Though I dreaded the cold, mold-filled nights (I’m still wheezing), this place was magical. My days were spent either painting or talking with the artists.

Creating Giant Paintings

Inside one studio was a great Russian master by the name of Igor Zeitza, who was working on a canvas that had to be 30 feet long and 20 feet high. “I don’t have room to do this in my studio in Moscow, so I come here to paint,” he said. His last giant painting had dozens of figures and took 10 years to complete.

The one he was working on was of a great moment in Russian military history, with about 10 life-size figures, and he estimated it would take another two years of work. He showed me the dozens of studies he’d painted over the past decade in preparation. All were masterpieces and reminded me of the studies in the Russian Museum that Repin had created for his monumental painting there.

Next door to me was the great Russian master Cederoff, now in his 90s and, like his neighbor, working on a huge painting because his home studio wasn’t large enough. With my translator I learned of his life, his history, and his passion for painting. “All of my paintings are of my life,” he said. “Even the big ones in the museums are memories of my childhood.”

I asked him why he paints, and his answer was unexpected. “I paint to give people encouragement and hope. I try to make everything I paint uplifting to the human spirit.”

He then pulled down two coffee-table books, flipped through them page by page, and told me the story of each painting. The one he was working on in the studio was in the book, but, according to him, “A painting is never really done.” The painting was of a peasant laying out stems from a crop on the grass. Another woman was staring at an orange full moon. “That’s my mother. We were working in the fields and the moon rose, and my mother said it was evidence that God was with us and supported our work.” He went on to tell me the painting was especially important because the crop is used to make linseed oil and the canvas we paint on.

Cederoff had 20 very large canvases stretched. “I have a show in May that I’ve not yet started. I have to make a painting for each of these. After that I’ll start working on my next big show to celebrate my 100th birthday.”

I could have stayed and listened to his stories all day, but I didn’t want to lose my light, so I did a painting of the yellow octagonal house from the bottom of the hill, looking up.

Meeting Up with Old Friends

Later we walked down the lane where I had walked in 2004, during my first visit, and where I met the great Russian legend Yuri Kugach, who was 91 or 92 at the time. Though he is gone now, his grandson Ivan, another amazing artist, had us in for dinner by candlelight in his grandfather’s house, which is now Ivan’s studio. We talked about art and sampled the local herb-infused vodka for hours. The next day we visited the dacha (cabin) of Ivan’s father, Michael Kugach, which I had visited in 2004. I had a chance to see his studio and the pieces he was working on.

Did I mention I was in plein air heaven?

A Village Like a Movie Set

Later, we drove an hour through the bumpiest and muddiest road I’ve probably ever been on, thinking we would get stuck at any moment. The car was sliding around, the tires were spinning, and rocks were thumping on the undercarriage. At the end of the road was a quaint small village of about 10 dachas, most of which were decorated with bright colors and beautiful wooden carvings. The area was used in a movie, though I don’t know the title.

The village cow wandered around curiously and was followed by her best friend, a sheep. As I was painting the intense afternoon sun on the face of the dacha in front of me, the cow came up to my paint box, took a sniff, looked up in apparent approval, and walked off with the sheep behind her. I’m thankful she wasn’t tempted to snack on my paints.

These are the moments plein air painting is made for. You can’t make this stuff up.

Opportunity Almost Missed

Had I not stayed at the studio at the Academic Dacha, I would have missed the most special moments of sitting with friends, sampling vodkas, eating fish caught earlier in the day and fresh apples off the tree down the road. We talked about paintings, painters, and the life of an artist … which I realized at that moment I was living, if only for a brief couple of days.

Tears were shed by my Russian artist friends and I when I departed for America from the airport in Moscow the following day. We had a wonderful memory in our three days together, did some great paintings, and wondered if we would ever see each other again.

Two weeks in Russia is not enough, and my next trip, if I can ever make it happen, will be nothing but painting … and who knows, maybe I’ll take some friends with me.

My moment of decision to accept my circumstances and not be a spoiled American made my trip a very rich experience. Instead of insisting on a change (and risking insulting my host) to have a better place to stay, I tolerated some conditions that were pretty harsh compared to my cushy life. But I just told myself it’s like camping.

The Spoiled American

I learned a lot about myself on that day and realized how fortunate I am, how spoiled I had become, and how the only things that mattered at that moment were the rich human experiences that can never be repeated. After all, how often do you get to paint with a couple of Russian masters, visit the cabins of some of the greatest living artists in Russia, and just hang and chat with one of the most important artists in the world? It was a great couple of days.

Turns out all 27 dachas didn’t have mold, just the one shared by me and Cederoff, next door. He told me he thought the ceiling might cave in, so he moved his paintings to the other side of the room. It appears there had been a leak in the roof in this old building, and it needs care and money, neither of which is readily available.

In spite of harsh media coverage about Russia, the experience of visiting is rich, not only because of the cultural experiences and the amazing paintings, but because of the warm, welcoming people. Though their nation, like ours, has its problems, those problems affect the people but don’t define them. These are special people, and my friends there share my passion for painting.

A Dream for an American Artists’ Retreat

I can’t help but think a wealthy donor will step up and help me create a special place like this in America, almost a commune of sorts, where we all live nearby and spend our summers painting together and working with students. Hey, it’s a dream. If Russia can have this, why can’t we?

I’m sure I’ll have many stories to share from this amazing trip over the coming weeks. But for now, enough about Russia.

Next Stop, Maine

Next Friday we start the Fall Color Week Publisher’s Invitational in Maine. About 60 painters and I gather to paint the amazing scenery for a week. We might still have a bed or two available, and the accommodations and food are really excellent if you’re feeling spontaneous and crave a week of painting fall color, crashing waves, and lobster boats.

Now that I’m back in my home, I look around, take a deep breath of crisp clean air, and value what I have in my life. They say difficult moments make great memories, and I’ll never forget these amazing days in brotherhood with artists from a different land.

I often don’t stop to appreciate what I have, but my perspective has recently changed. Have a great week.

Back in the 1980s, I thought a lot about my dream house. I had a vision of a Key West-style white clapboard house with a giant porch that wraps all the way around. Because I love the sound of rain and thunder, I dreamed of sitting on that porch during massive rainstorms. The idea of a porch on each side of the house was to get out of the blowing rain so I could sit outside during a storm and stay dry.

“Soggy” might best describe today. But it’s beyond that. Imagine giant industrial-size fans like the ones they use on movie sets. Now imagine a firehose of water gushing out in front of those fans, which are grinding as fast as they possibly can and pointing toward the windows. Today, the rain is blowing sideways and the noise on the metal roof is almost deafening from inside the house.

I never built that dream house, but I do have that big long wraparound porch. I’m sitting here on my little red wicker couch in the corner of the porch. How that couch has not blown away is a mystery. All the other lawn furniture is in the garage because forecasters told us to store any objects that can fly away.

I’m wearing my bright red raincoat, which is making lots of noise in the strong wind, and though I’m dry in this little corner, I’m feeling a light mist from the blowing rain.

During the peak of the storm, which started on Thursday night, the house was shaking like a martini. We wondered if at any moment our metal roof would fly off and we would have rain on the inside.

We left Florida to escape hurricanes. Though Austin is inland and Hurricane Harvey was downgraded, it was a whopper of a storm.

One thing most people don’t know is that the barometric pressure of hurricanes puts many nearly-due pregnant moms into labor. In fact, some friends came up to our house during a storm and ended up going into labor; their daughter was born in a hospital that was using a generator to keep the lights on — and at the same time, in the delivery room next door, Marla Maples was giving birth to Tiffany, the daughter of our President. (Please no e-mails because I used the “p-word.”)

Unrelated to the storm, we’re celebrating three new babies.

Dean Pickering, who edits our art instruction videos, has just informed us of the birth of his new grandson, Ryan.

Allison Affourtit, who puts together the e-mails and e-mail graphics for our marketing lab, has just come back to work after the birth of her daughter, Sloane.

Turner Vinson, who works on our videos and photography and audio at our Plein Air Convention & Expo and Figurative Art Convention & Expo, is due to have his second child at any minute. He is out of the storm zone, but so far I’ve heard nothing. I’ve managed to get this e-mail out, despite power outages — somehow the cell towers are still operational nearby.

It’s fun to see more babies added to the family.

Over the years I’ve watched young people I’ve hired grow up, blossom into fine adults, get married, have kids, raise their kids, put their kids into college, and watch their kids get married and continue the amazing cycle of life.

Though I cannot claim to be the world’s best boss, I do try to keep up on the families, the pictures, and the things family members are experiencing. It’s one of the joys of my business life.

I’m reminded of this quote…

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” — Luke 12:48

When I was younger, I didn’t think much about the responsibility to care for what I’ve been blessed with. Yet today, as the family of co-workers grows, I realize I have accountability to these people. If I mess up, these kids don’t eat.

I think the same thing is true for those of us who are artists…

We have a responsibility to our “art family”… the people who buy our artwork and the people who help us sell it. We are a unified family.

When someone is paying me for my artwork, I feel an obligation to be the very best I can be. Not so that I look good, though that’s nice, but so my galleries are offering the very best of me.

For me that means…

• Don’t be in a hurry.
• Don’t cut corners.
• Don’t settle for just getting it done. Only settle when it’s done well.
• Provide the absolute finest work you can produce.
• Be mindful of the long term, so your painting lives on for generations.
• Be in a constant state of growth by learning from others.
• Be responsible about quality preparation and materials to prevent cracking and to make sure the painting lasts for many, many years.
• Picture the painting in a home as a portal, taking viewers to another place.

I was horrified when an artist friend told me he prepares his canvas with house paint in order to save money. When I told him that house paint peels over time and that his paintings won’t last, he said, “Who cares? I’ll be dead by then.”

Sadly, that’s not providing accountability to your buyer, who has trusted you to give them the very best.

No matter what you do … accountability and trust come with the territory.

I think most of us strive to live up to the expectations of others and understand that there is satisfaction in living up to the responsibilities we’ve been given.

I’d love to hear from you, and hear about the ways that you provide accountability in your daily life, whether it’s family, employees, students, work, or artwork. I’ve come to look forward to spending part of my morning listening to your stories. I hope you’ll take time to share yours with me.

Have a great week, and join me in celebrating new babies in the Streamline family. Oh, and I love seeing your families on Facebook and Instagram. Though I’m told I’ve reached my limit on “friends” on Facebook, you can still follow. That would be cool so I can see what you’re up to.

I’m tired. It’s early, and I awoke this morning in spite of wishing for more sleep. It’s rare that I wake up tired; today I’m still fatigued after driving about seven hours yesterday. But I was returning to the lake, my muse, the most cherished place in my life, after a few days of stark contrast in the Boston area to provide my son with the educational opportunity of a lifetime: the Congress of Future Scientists and Technology Leaders. It’s an annual event, by invitation only to 7,000 kids from across our land, to get access to and opinions from the great minds of our world. I was pleased to be a fly on the wall and a VIP guest, and pleased to give my son a chance to hang with the luminaries of science.

Objecting to the Move

Though this lake has become my inspiration as an artist, a place where we can spend our summers to reconnect as a family, and a place to reconnect with nature, it didn’t start out that way. In fact, I didn’t want to be here.

Thirty years ago, my father told my brothers and I that he was selling his summer home on Lake Wawasee in Indiana and moving to a lake like the one in the movie On Golden Pond, but lacking JetSkis and rumbling racing boats. I was not thrilled. We were the third generation on that lake, which had memories of ice fishing with my grandfather, summers with friends, learning to drive a boat, and feeling freedom for the first time.

Seeking Quiet

I also didn’t like his reason for leaving, which was that our lake had become noisy, busy, and crazy. It struck me as a retirement mentality, and at the time I was in my 30s and loved the buzz of the lake. Quiet was not on my radar.

I was resistant to visiting the new place in this park they call the Adirondacks, which turned out to be miles and miles of preserved beauty, larger than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Parks combined, and equally stunning.

Where’s My Noise?

Upon arrival, I thought it was too quiet. In fact, it was so quiet that it made me uncomfortable. Nothing but beauty, chirping birds, loons crying out their eerie calls, and no boat noise to speak of. The 100-year-old house had no television, was remote enough to have no radio signals (a tough thing because I was in the radio industry), and no noise-making gadgets other than the cassette player in the car. Oh, and there was a piano.

I was put off about being stuck in the middle of the woods, inhaling the fresh air laced with pine scent. Leaving early was on my mind because being stuck here for a week, as planned, did not fit my idea of a good time. I missed the lake of my home. This one didn’t seem like it was going to be much fun. It was too far away for my friends to visit. It was not the bustling activity I was used to.

I was an activity junkie and I needed a fix, but there was no fix to be had. If only I could return to the city, to the noise.

Waking Up to Dead Silence

I recall waking on day two in a deafening silence. Though it was mid-August, as I popped out of bed and looked out the window of the bedroom in the old boathouse overlooking the lake, the water was still. The island and the mountain in the distance had been blanketed with a sheet of snow that clung to the needles of the pines, weighting their branches.

Snow was a foreign substance to me — something I’d not been around since I left Indiana at age 17 to spend my winters in Florida. My first reaction was to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head, and try to sulk myself back to sleep about this unfortunate event. But something got into me that day. I put on my warmest clothes — I had very few warm clothes for my summertime visit — grabbed my camera, hopped in the Jeep, and drove around the area taking pictures of the snow. Mine were the only tracks that morning, mine the lone car on the surrounding country roads. Then I jumped in the boat and photographed the snow from the lake.

I never knew such silence. Snow covering the world, absorbing all noise, creating the most quiet I had ever known. It was magical.

Several years of Christmas card photos came out of that day, but that wasn’t the best part. It was the day I transformed from needing constant stimulation and the noise of life to craving silence. Suddenly and unintentionally, I gained an appreciation for the silence of this lake.

My New Muse

As an artist, the Adirondacks became my muse. I became enthralled by the distant blue mountains, the depth of the forests, the 200 shades of green, the brooks babbling through rocks inside the forest, the massive waterfalls from high peaks.

Decades of photography consumed me in this place before I graduated to painting, and the mountain view from our place has become the challenge I’ve never completely conquered, painting it many times each year and never getting it to a point of perfection. Each year I think, “This will be the year I capture its true essence and the sense of quiet in this place.” No two days are alike; in fact, no one day is the same minute to minute.

Capturing Hearts

Over almost 30 years in this place, I’ve watched this region capture the heart of every visitor who comes here. Busy, insanely uptight business people, like I was, come here, and soon they melt into the peace of these woods. I’ve never been in a place where one can relax so easily, almost instantly.

I’d spend my busy business-filled year looking forward to a week at the lake, which is all I got most summers, and some summers I couldn’t get here at all. Yet I knew that week would ground me, soothe my soul, reconnect me with nature, and wash away a year’s worth of stress.

Healing Summers

My summers here are my healing. Walks through the woods, painting in front of misty waterfalls, absorbing deep forest greens with my eyes, filling my ears with the sounds of loons crying in the night or even, oddly enough, the patter of tiny mouse feet inside the walls of our 100-year-old cabin. It is all very comforting, and the experience I crave all year when we’re not here.

I spent many years getting my business in a position so that I could be here all summer, something that was also impossible before Internet by satellite came here to the woods. When the kids were pre-school, we would stay from June through November, through the first couple of snows. One day, once the kids hit college, our time here will increase so I can experience as much time here as possible without putting up with the 30-below temps of the deep winter. After all, our house has no heat, no insulation.

Saying Goodbye

Tears fill my eyes when I leave this place as each summer ends, knowing that one day we may be unable to return, and knowing that I’ll long for it all year. Summers here are getting shorter because our high school-aged triplets have to return a month early for marching band practice. I want to be selfish and stay, but that’s not what good fathers do.

The woods are medicine to my soul.

Perhaps it was youth that fostered my addiction to activity, but it was the woods that coaxed me out of it. Solitude with nature has become my temple, my place to communicate with my thoughts and my maker.

Walking a Woodsy Trail

My morning ritual, my commute from our small cabin among the towering trees, is a five-minute walk down a tree-lined dirt road to the lakeside boathouse where I do my daily work, and where I longingly look out over the lake, hoping to knock off early for a visit to the other shores.

No man could ever have convinced me that the woods would become part of my DNA, or that I’d thrive away from my busy addiction. But I could not fight it. I tried, but it won me over.

I recently heard a quote: “Build pockets of stillness into your life. Presence is far more rewarding than productivity.”

Summers beside the lake surrounded by deep woods do my soul good, but it is the solitude and the presence, the quiet, that stimulates thought, that matters. My quiet mornings to myself help me find that presence, and they help me reconnect with my true self, getting away from my busy self.

I feel especially blessed to have experienced this place and been able to call it home for many summers. My kids have never known summer anywhere else. We are very fortunate.

Small Screens Create Stress

Though we are easily seduced by small screens, tweets, and Instagram posts so we junkies don’t have to let a minute pass without glancing at the screen in our hands, waiting to see who tweeted what, we need to understand that it’s an addiction, and it creates dopamine, just like opiates do. Like heroin addicts, we cannot let go, yet we need to.

We all need solitude, whether it’s a place to escape, woods to walk through, or just mornings free of activity so we can quietly hear the ticking of the clock and the chirp of the morning birds. Seek it, and embrace it, because it feeds the soul.

During the school year, getting the kids off to school and having each morning be an insane one, my strategy is to awaken, and sit peacefully with my coffee, with the quiet, with the peace, with my thoughts and prayers.

Delaying Addiction

Though my addictive side wants to glance at that small screen to see who is paying attention to me with their tweets and posts and e-mails, and though it’s become our way of finding out what’s going on in our world, I try to resist and preserve my quiet time. The moment I glance at a screen, my mind begins to race for the day and the peace and quiet is lost.

The Sounds of Silence

This Sunday morning I encourage you to seek silence and peace. It’s a gift, and it’s therapy in preparation for a busy day. If you have a place nearby you can go to get back to nature, it’s a blessing for sure, but all you really need is a quiet spot in a corner of your home to ponder life each morning before your busy day kicks in.

Seek out your special time, and protect it with your life. Use that time to journal, to read, to think, to pray. You can achieve it in the middle of a busy city or in the solitude of the woods.

Seek silence, seek quiet. Pull away from the noise, the activity, the screen, and feed your soul.

You’re looking especially fine this morning. If you’re a dad, happy dad’s day. If you’re missing your dad, please know my heart is with you. I always look forward to what the kids come up for me to do with them on this day.

I’m up early … the sun has been coming up about 4:30 these days, and these early mornings are so peaceful. The lake remains still. The light has not yet hit the “golden” moments, but it won’t be long. Meanwhile, the mountain is reflecting a deep bluish-green-purple color in the water, and we’ve got some puffy clouds. Hope it’s not rain. I’m sitting in a bright red Adirondack chair, which is entirely appropriate, considering I’m at a lake in the Adirondack Park.

Mixed Emotions

Today, I’m happy and I’m sad. Happy because it’s Father’s Day and I’m blessed to still have my dad around and in excellent health. Happy because it’s my day and the kids pay a little more attention than normal.

But I’m also sad. Not “someone died” sad, but “friends are leaving” sad. You see, this morning as I awoke, the reality set in that today we all go home, and some of us may never be together again.

The Last Day

This morning is the last day of my Publisher’s Invitational in the Adirondack Mountains. We have been together since last Sunday, when everyone checked in and we had our orientation and opening dinner. Then we got up each morning and had breakfast together, went out and painted in the most amazing scenery all day every day, then gathered for dinner together each evening. We sat up at night telling stories, viewing one another’s paintings from the day, having drinks together, painting portraits, and playing some music. It’s a pretty festive week.

The best part of the week, other than painting all day with no pressure to be anywhere, and no pressure of competing in a show, is that we all become very close. We develop some fabulous friendships during the week, and for those who return year after year, we get even closer and look forward to the following year.

Summer Camp

I can remember having this same sad, sinking feeling after summer camp as a child. I was nervous going to camp not knowing anyone, but by the end of a couple of weeks I did not want to leave my friends, who all went to different schools in different cities. I also remember looking forward to returning year after year. This week is a lot like that because, after all, I call it “paint camp.”

The concept of this event started out simple: friends getting together to paint and play for a week, because the painters’ circuit is busy and competitive and we simply never get to do that. We started with seven painters, and they began bringing their friends, and this week we had 77 painters.

Hanging with Friends

Though my intent with the Invitational was to spend time with old friends, the unexpected benefit has been the new friends. When friends bring their friends, suddenly your circle of friends grows. I’ve always got room for new ones, and just when you think you have enough really close friends, something deep develops unexpectedly.

My Grandmother Luella, at age 92, told me, “You have to work at friendships to keep them alive.” She taught me well. She was always calling friends around the country and updating them on the family. She had hundreds of friends accumulated over 90-plus years. My dad is the same way. Learning this was a gift that has enriched my own life. I hope I can pass it on to my kids. This little Sunday missive is one of the ways I keep in touch.

We make discoveries by accident, but what my grandmother said was really true … you have to work at friendships. I create a lot of things to nurture friendships. I invest in finding time with special people.

Cycles of Life

I tend to believe that our lives have friendship cycles. There were times in my life when I spent a lot of time with certain people, had lots of good times, and then those people naturally faded from my life. They were little gifts. In some cases we served a purpose for one another for a time, and then we grew apart, intentionally or unintentionally. My radar is always open to new people for a new cycle in my life. Not all friends need to stay forever.

What I’ve found is that friends grow apart when the circumstances bringing them together change. I can remember friends I met in the radio business, people I spent a lot of time with because we were at the same meetings and same events and we grew closer, but then a few years passed and they moved on to other jobs or industries, and we simply don’t run into one another anymore. Sometimes too much time passes and you discover you can’t even find people anymore.

Difficult Friendships

Another hard lesson I’ve learned is that sometimes you have to shed friends. Though I’m never calling anyone and saying, “We’re not friends anymore,” there are times you just have to lay low because someone has become toxic. It was a hard lesson, because I never want to let anyone go, but when people become abusive to themselves or others, when they are doing things that are not healthy for themselves or the relationship, I have to keep my distance. Fortunately, it hasn’t happened often.

Of course, there are also the pretend friends. They tell you one thing and tell others another, and it gets back to you. It’s pure evil. I still hurt thinking about how I believed in some people and I was betrayed, yet they still pretend all is well.

Deadly Gossip

I recently lost a good friend because I told another mutual friend, out of concern, about something I’d heard — and that friend told my friend, who called me on it. I’ll think twice before I do that again because the loss of friendship leaves a gaping hole. It’s best just to keep my trap shut. Gossip is deadly even if you didn’t intend it as gossip.

The best friends are the lifers, of course. Sometimes you’re not in touch for years, even decades, but you still consider one another friends, and when you’re back together you don’t skip a beat. Facebook has been great for staying informed on the lives of friends I don’t often see in person.

My best lifers are the ones who nurture their friendships. It’s forced collision — I try to force it annually.

Together All Year

One of my closest lifer friends and I are like the two characters in the movie Same Time Next Year. I do an annual event at the Harvard Club in New York for my radio magazine, Radio Ink, and he likes to attend, so he always comes in and we room together at the National Arts Club, go to dinner and breakfast together, and get caught up on families and feelings. It’s something we both cherish because we talk for hours.

Though we talk randomly throughout the year, this is a way we carve out time for one another. It’s a big sacrifice for him to make the trip, and it’s one of the most meaningful times of the year for me. I look forward to it all year. We’ve done it for probably 10 years, and last year he missed it for the first time because he had a chance to go to Asia. It was truly lonely without him, and a time when I realized that one day that friend could be gone. As they say, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

I’m not sure why I feel so strongly about friendships. Maybe it was not getting picked for either team as the fat kid in elementary school, or being so weird that me and the kids I hung out with were the school losers (according to others, not us).

Driven by Friendships

As I look back on my year and my events, I’ve realized that friendships drive the whole thing. We really do get close at painting events like this week’s Adirondack Publisher’s invitational, next October’s Fall Color Week in Acadia National Park in Maine, and trips like the one I’ve taken painters on to Cuba and New Zealand in the last 18 months, or even our annual art cruise (this year, for the first time, it’s not a cruise — we’re going to Russia). I’m sure I’ll make friends on next year’s African Art Safari. Of course, the Plein Air Convention (PACE) and the Figurative Art Convention & Expo (FACE) will be filled with new and old friendships.

Though I started kinda melancholy this morning, I’ve just realized how fortunate I am to be in a position to make so many friends. I can always be a better friend, I can nurture more, call more, and stay in better touch. Some friends I rarely see, others I see frequently, and it’s still not enough.

My grandmother had a rich life with deep and meaningful friendships, and I think her advice to stay in touch and nurture those relationships has paid off. It makes life so much richer when you can share it with others.

I feel like the luckiest man alive…

Today may be Father’s Day, which comes with its responsibilities, but why not seek out and nurture some friends today and this week?

This morning as I sit here on the back porch, I’m watching a mama sparrow bringing food to her babies in a nest tucked into the rafters of our porch. The little birds are learning to fly. I’m watching them hop from the nest to the blades of our ceiling fan and then on to the branches of the stately oaks in the back yard. As they jump, they first fall before they engage their wings, which then propel them to the next branch. If they forget to use their wings, which they do from time to time, they hit the ground, then shake it off, hop to a branch, and start over. Birds learn like we all learn. Trial and error.

Young Sparrows Floundering

Watching these young sparrows, I think back to my own jumping from the nest, forgetting to use my wings, and crashing to the ground. My mistakes were often catastrophic, and there were times when I didn’t think I could get up again and shake it off. Yet, once the feeling of being stunned by failure faded, I found new energy somewhere deep inside and got the guts to try flying once again.

Decades to Learn Important Lessons

Unlike sparrows, we humans often take decades to learn important lessons. For me, it took that long to learn the most important principle of business and life, which completely changed how I do everything. It involves four little words, which, if sought out, will transform you.

What if I told you that four words could make a difference in your life, your career, and how you approach the ways you offer your product or service? What if I told you that it’s something you’ve probably heard, but ignored?

Looking back, I’d also heard this. It seemed too easy, and it never really gelled for decades. But since I started doing it, I’ve seen my life completely changed.

A Rude Awakening

It started exactly five years ago, when my radio magazine, Radio Ink, celebrated its 20th anniversary. It was bittersweet. I loved that we had survived 20 years, but looking back, I had not achieved what I had wanted to achieve. I had not hit my goals. I felt as though I had only gotten one year of experience — 20 times.

I was faced with a decision. Keep doing exactly what I’ve been doing and risk the next 20 years being equally unproductive, or make some changes in my life and my approach.
The easy thing would have been to remain comfortable and not mess with the status quo. But I knew in my heart that something had to change. I was not someone who wanted to “coast.”

Misplaced Arrogance

My wife suggested I attend a Dave Ramsey EntreLeadership course she had heard about on the radio. My first reaction: “What can they teach me? After all, I’ve been a CEO for more than two decades.” Then I realized how arrogant that statement was. So I attended.

At the event I learned a lot of new things, and I was reminded of some core principles I had forgotten.

A Spirit of Generosity

But the most important thing I took home was when Dave Ramsey said, “Operate your business with a spirit of generosity. Don’t be the kind of business that only takes. Instead, find out how generous you can be, and live it with everything you do.”

When I made this switch in my head and communicated it to my team, everything started to change.

Additionally, over the last five years I’ve attended probably a dozen or more training events, and I’ve joined two different mastermind groups with other business owners where we share information. The common theme among them all? Everything you do should be about changing the world and making people’s lives better.

Changing Lives

So we started making everything we do about changing lives and making lives better. It gave us a much bigger mission and something we could all get excited about.

We also picked a charity and started giving a part of our profits to that charity every year, which helped us have a common purpose beyond what we were doing for our readers, advertisers, and clients. I’m not one who wants to flaunt charitable giving to enhance our corporate image, but I will say that our giving has helped a lot of people less fortunate than ourselves.

Our entire focus has been on giving generously.

Recently, at the Plein Air Convention in San Diego, I encountered hundreds of people who told us that we’ve changed their lives because of the things we’ve done to help people discover painting, help them learn to be better painters, and help them market their paintings.

When you hear the words “You’ve changed my life,” you know your mission is on the right road.

Those are the four words to live by … and live for.

Living to Hear “You Changed My Life”

I live to hear those words, and I strive to make everything I do change lives, whether it’s education through our magazines, or opportunity through our painting retreats, or helping people discover painting and refine their skills through our videos or conventions.

If everything you do can impact others in a positive way and they tell you, “You’ve changed my life,” you’ve done more than create a business or an enterprise or an ideal life. You’ve had an impact that can be lasting.

The principle works. When you put the needs of others first, and you generously live to serve others, you will hear these golden words that are a sign that you’re on the right path.

Thanks for sharing coffee with me this morning. Your mission for this week? Stop and think about what you do that can change lives. Stop and think about the feedback you’ve received and the moments people have said, “You changed my life.”

Healing Paintings

My friend Charles H. White once told me of a woman who bought a painting of his to look at all day from bed while she was dealing with chemo treatments. She told him that his painting got her through it, gave her hope, and helped her see a better tomorrow.

Your paintings, too, can change lives, whether brightening a day or transporting the viewer to a special place or memory. Or you can teach others to do it. After all, learning to paint reduces stress and allows us to forget the rough spots in our lives for the hours we’re at the easel.

I hope you have a great Sunday and a fabulous week. Remember to try making everything about others this week.