Change is good

Last year in this space I was gush­ing about gingkoes, this year I’m mad about maples. We are sur­round­ed by beau­ty in Clark County — espe­cial­ly in autumn. When I made this small water­col­or on rough-tex­tured paper, I thought it lacked oomph, so I pulled out my black pen and start­ed mak­ing lit­tle dots. As usu­al, I was just play­ing around, which is the only way I can imag­ine attempt­ing to make art.

A will­ing­ness to exper­i­ment and try new things has been an abid­ing theme in my life. People who know me well know that I’ve rein­vent­ed myself mul­ti­ple times — an approach that has both draw­backs and rewards.

A year ago, my friends Pete Koutoulas and Chuck Witt invit­ed me to join in on a project they dreamed up one day over cof­fee: a web­site for writ­ers and artists who want­ed to pub­lish their work online. I said that while I loved and sup­port­ed their idea, I had noth­ing to con­tribute since I hadn’t writ­ten in years and was per­fect­ly con­tent amus­ing myself, friends, and fam­i­ly with fun­ny lit­tle paint­ings. They told me to think about it.

I did, and  — as is the sto­ry of my life — the temp­ta­tion to try some­thing new proved irre­sistible. When WinCity went live on Oct. 30, 2021, I was right there, expos­ing myself in a way I had nev­er imag­ined pos­si­ble and wasn’t sure I would ever do again. And then came the feed­back — so kind, so encour­ag­ing, so unex­pect­ed­ly val­i­dat­ing. Never in a mil­lion years did I antic­i­pate that, and nev­er in a mil­lion years can I express my grat­i­tude to every­one who has tak­en time out of their busy life to look at, read, or com­ment on not only my stuff, but the amaz­ing — and grow­ing — body of work on the site that is now called WinCity Voices.

It’s been a head-spin­ning year on many lev­els, and I can’t wait to see what hap­pens next as Pete and Chuck’s brain­child moves into its sec­ond sea­son. I hope you’re as excit­ed as I am, because I can’t imag­ine where any of us would be with­out you. 

Thanks from the bot­tom of my fick­le green heart.