009: Doug Lofstrom – On Becoming An Artist At 79

Title: Doug Lofstrom – On Becoming An Artist At 79

Guest: Doug Lofstrom

Peter: Welcome to the Biz and Life Done Well podcast, where we explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well. I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If you’re like me, you’re intrigued by stories of common people who have achieved uncommon success in business and life. Join me as I interview fascinating people about how they got started, their successes and failures, their habits and routines, and what inspires them. Today, my guest is Doug Lofstrom.

Doug, welcome to the podcast.

Doug: Hey. Thanks for allowing me to come on in.

Peter: Doug, you are a an artist among other things. It’s your artistry that’s probably the thing that has, you know, made me aware of who you are. So Doug, tell us a little about yourself.

Doug: So Pete.

Peter: Yes, sir.

Doug: Yeah. Well, as long as we’re talking about the art, I presume you’d like to chat a little bit about art and how I got into

Peter: We could start there, but, you know

Doug: Or I can start a little bit earlier.

Peter: Let’s let’s go a little earlier. By the way, I I hate to do this, Doug, but before we get started, how old are you?

Doug: 81.

Peter: 81. Mhmm. You I think you, at this point, you have the distinction of being the oldest person I’ve had on the podcast.

Doug: Oh, boy. I’m number one in something. I love that.

Peter: So go ahead. Let’s hear a little about Doug.

Doug: Okay. Well, I’m not highly educated. I come from, you know, laboring people and I graduated from high school in 1956. Spent a couple years. I was drafted in the United States Army, spent a few years knocking around after that in various jobs and opportunities that I had.

I was a real estate developer for some time, and I was married for fifty one years to Margie. Margie passed away 12/31/2010. But prior, you know, in the interim I had been in a lot of businesses, some were great successes and some were failures. None had anything to do whatsoever with art. My wife Margie was an artist, and so I learned a little bit about art just by watching her.

After Margie passed away, I met Carol, and I know you don’t want to go into a huge thing about me, I It’s

Peter: all about you.

Doug: Carol and I got together and and all kinds of things changed after that. A good friend of mine here in Edmonds, Clayton Moss, who’s a great graphics designer as we all know Yeah. Said to me one time after I got together with Carol, he says, you know, Doug, oftentimes when we’re talking you say, since I met Carol. And so and so since I met Carol, all kinds of things changed for me. Carol’s a cellist.

She’s sitting here with us today and she plays a cello cello quite well and she’s also a pianist of some repute and and but to get back to what I’m doing. Art, way back when with my first wife I would suggest to her that she paint big and she did paint big once in a while and she was a very good artist And I thought that if I ever paint or become if I could ever paint anything at all, would paint on a great big canvas.

Peter: Yeah.

Doug: That’s what I’d like to do. So about two years ago, twenty five or twenty six months ago, my neighbor, Nancy McDonald, out on the Lincoln View Drive gave me a great big canvas because she didn’t want it anymore. It’s one of those Kmart canvases. Yeah. You know, a bunch of sunflowers or something.

I thought this might be a chance for me to take a crack at painting. Okay. And so I did. I laid this thing down in our garage and tried to paint something on it, and it was just horrifyingly bad. Then I painted a number of other things on the same canvas, and one day something turned out.

It turned out looking kinda cool. Simultaneous with that occurring, the political season was starting. And while I was just fooling around with this painting and trying to make something out of it, the Donald Trump Hillary Clinton thing got started. Mhmm. And I and it was so mesmerizing where I Carol and I had not watched TV in five years except for sixty minutes.

Mhmm. But now we both became engrossed in this watching Trump fiasco. Yeah. And I became so irritated with the whole thing. I said to Sheryl, Sheryl, I’ve gotta do something because this is I haven’t gonna go crazy with this thing.

It is so irritating to watch this. I mean, we’re at that point 79 years old and I don’t wanna have anything like this in my life if we can avoid it. Yeah. So so at at that point I told Art I mentioned to Carol, says, you know what? I think I’ll I’ll become an artist.

Carol said, what do you mean? I said, I’m gonna I said, I’m going to start a we’ll start a painting business. What do you mean? She says again. I said, well, look.

Here’s the deal. I’ll paint 25 paintings. K. Because we have to have an inventory. Right, Carol?

I mean, isn’t that the way business works? You must have an inventory. Sure. So I she said, really? And I said, then we’ll sell a couple of paintings.

We’ll have and and as we sell a painting, then I’ll refill the inventory. There you go. So we’ll always have 25 paintings in inventory. And she looked at me like I was just totally nuts. And she said, Doug, you will never sell a painting ever.

You don’t even know how to draw. So so I started. So I started painting.

Peter: So you picked up a brush.

Doug: I picked up a brush, went down and bought a few things at Art Spot. Yep. Bought three, you know, three tubes of paint, a couple canvases, and away I went. And by December this was in October 2016. By 12/24/2017, we had 25 or 30 paintings.

They were just plastered all over the place, you know, they were a little of some I don’t know what kind of quality, but they were there. And some guy walked into our home. Well, actually, I’ll tell you his name. Michael Kealy K. Who’s a friend of mine, Windermere broker.

Mhmm. And he said, oh my gosh. You know, it’s the December 24 and I haven’t purchased anything for Sylvia. He says, I think I’m pretty generous this by three in the afternoon. So he said, What would you take for that painting, that particular painting?

I said, I thought, what the heck? You know? $1,300, I tell him. Yeah. So we kinda haggled around, and he ended up paying me $650 in a check.

And Carol and I, when he walked out the door, we both go, hi. We were 79 year old people jumping up and down in the living room, high fiving each other, looking at the picture of Mike, Keeley, and me in the check. Wow. And it was just an amazing occurrence. And that started the whole process.

And at that moment, I kinda went from goofball painter to artist. Yeah. Professional artist. Right? Sure.

And from there on, you know, pretty soon somebody else, another guy came in and I thought I’d try that same little number on him. Yeah. He says, well you about two or three weeks later, this guy Bill McCloud is his name. Bill came in and he said, hey, I like the looks of that painting, you know, I like the colors and everything. Well, what would you take for that?

Yeah. And I say, $1,300. Mhmm. And he says, okay. And that’s how the business started.

Peter: So this time you said it with a straight face.

Doug: Yeah. The other thing is that I didn’t bring in much about Donald Trump. I just wanted to do one thing. I guess I have Donald Trump to thank for all of this. I mean, are we on?

Peter: We’re on.

Doug: Oh. We’re recording. Well the reason I have Donald Trump to thank for all of this is that I despise the guy. But if it hadn’t been for him being so obnoxious, I probably wouldn’t have continued on as an artist. You know, because that kind of gave me the impetus to go into something brand spanking new that I’d never thought I could do in my life just because I had to get away from him.

And that has been a marvel to both Carol and I. We have now have dozens of associates, acquaintances, and friends that we never would have had if it hadn’t been for this art Yeah. Enterprise. Yeah. It’s been, in a way phenomenally successful and another for one reason this paid for itself.

Peter: Sure.

Doug: You know as of just getting started on something for a couple years understanding a little bit about business to go in the black after two years. Yeah. You know, as you know, as a businessman, is not so bad.

Peter: That’s great. And I’m assuming you were retired, but Yeah, perhaps

Doug: we were, I had retired from Windermere.

Peter: Okay.

Doug: And one of my

Peter: Real estate agents.

Doug: Yeah. As a broker. And one of my guys that’s really helped me a great deal, benefactor in a way, has been Greg Hoff at Windermere. Because Greg, one day I noticed know, people we wanna hang our painting somewhere. Yeah.

You know, I mean, every every artist wants his stuff out there, I guess. Not every artist for sure. Those of us with over big egos, I guess.

Peter: We we by the way, we’ve got one of your beautiful paintings hanging in our office. And, if people look at the podcast notes, they’ll see a picture of, Carol, Doug, and I in front of that painting. And we’ll have links to all your, website and all that, included in the show notes. Oh, So that’s people want to find that.

Doug: Oh, that’s good. Yeah. One day I noticed when I was sitting down at the Cafe Louvre, the gigantic wall that Greg Hoff has in his lobby of the building itself. I thought I worked up my nerve and asked my friend Greg if I could hang some paintings on his wall, that big wall, and he said go for it. And so then I ended up you know putting paintings all over the Windermere Building.

Peter: Right.

Doug: And so that’s sort of been my studio in a way, not a working studio, but a place that I could call mine because as you know rent here in Edmonds is quite expensive and while it would be ideal I suppose to have a little space somewhere, you know, to display it free is better than paying. Sure. And Greg has been so helpful that way in a very wonderful way.

Peter: And you are so what do you think about Edmunds in terms of, you know, the acceptance of artists? I mean, seems like there’s a lot of opportunity, a lot of art in Edmonds. Right?

Doug: I I think it’s a fabulous place, and one of the tests that I had in this whole endeavor is after painting for two or three months, maybe it was May 2017, I recall this quite well. I had borrowed we had an old pickup truck that Pat Shields, a local guy here, good friend of ours, had loaned us for some time. We didn’t need it. He just had it was extra, so we had it in our bunch of cars around our place. Yeah.

And I said to Carol, I think I’ll why don’t I take my paints and stuff and just go down, you know, in front of like near Engels Tavern and paint in public. And so we agreed that might be an idea of the crazy sound.

Peter: Check with the police first.

Doug: I didn’t. So I just, yeah, really that thought occurred to me. Can you actually just go down and stand in the street and paint? Yeah. So I did.

I drove down there and gosh it was really a nice day and I had a just a piece of raw canvas that means it wasn’t stretched on a stretcher board or anything. Was just a piece of canvas four by six feet and I laid it across the back of the pickup, actually hung it on the back of the pickup was duct tape and right in front of the red twig and God and everybody, I started to paint and I I felt like I could be just humiliated by doing this because people could laugh at me. Sure. Throw rocks at me or you know chortle as they went by. But and so I so it was kind of a step out into an area that I of life, you know, that I never thought I’d be able to do to actually go out and perform in a sense Yeah.

In front of the public. And it worked. I mean people were nice to me and they would stop and chat with me and they wanted to have their pictures taken with me. Probably just because I’m an old white haired guy out there. Probably just being kind to me.

And it became a thing that I did many many many times. And because I know you’re a marketing guy. To sell paintings is not an easy thing to do. And I thought, well, this is different, at least for Edmunds. To get back to Edmunds Yeah.

You don’t see people standing around out in the street, you know, painting. No. You go to New York or other places, you might see it everywhere. I don’t know about that, especially in the warmer climes. Sure.

But here you don’t see that. And so all of a sudden, the city of Edmonds, if you ask me what my address is for a painting, it’s the city of Edmonds. Because back to the question, the city of Edmonds is very welcoming to artists. Yeah. Extremely so.

And that’s what really got my name out there was doing that. Yeah. And now oddly enough, I mean I’m not used to that. I’m not famous by any means whatsoever, but it is kind of a lot of people will come up to me and say, oh, you’re the artist. I’m the artist?

Yeah. Like, I’m the artist in Edmonds. Yeah. Mean, there are I gotta tell you something, Pete. There are great artists in Edmonds.

I can’t carry the shoes Right. Of most of the artists in Edmonds. Andy Eckleshall. Yeah. David Marty.

David Marty.

Peter: Yes. Yeah.

Doug: Harold who moved away, I guess, now. Mike Regan, Clayton Moss. Yeah. These people are phenomenal artists.

Peter: Yeah.

Doug: So I just here I am out there. These people are calling me an artist. It’s like, really? Really? You wanna see some artists?

Go visit Andy Aklishaw. There’s an artist. I love Andy Ecklachol. He has that great personality and everything, and he’s been very helpful to me because when I talk to Andy Ecklachol, I usually start out by saying something really negative about my own work. Yeah.

Because I feel like I’m sort of, you know, I’m like humility. I mean, I’m humbled to be in his presence. Mhmm. And he always he says to me, Doug, Doug, you know, you’re different. You know?

Yeah. Yeah. You do your thing. Don’t you say that about yourself. Right.

Mike Regan Michael Regan. I don’t know if it’s Reagan or Regan. But anyway Mike Regan you know he’s the Chuck Close of Edmunds because he can do portraits that are dead right spot on as far as portraiture goes. And he has I’ve become a little bit acquainted with him and he stopped by in our place and he has seen me on the street in front of our house just loading up paintings in a truck or something. He has advised me do this, do that.

I pay attention to him. If you’re gonna ask me eventually who am I if I’ve ever taken any lessons, have in a way just listening to these other great to these I should say not other, these artists out there that really have done it.

Peter: Right, right. So what is this what is this done for you, for your spirit, for your soul? I mean, I just feel the energy. What, you know, what what what has this meant to you outside of the painting piece?

Doug: It’s an uplifting beyond belief. It’s no. It is believable. It is there are moments where things incidents where where something has happened during the painting process that makes me realize this is what I want, this is what I should be doing. And I’ll give you an example.

Yeah. I was approached on the street by a woman named Pam Martin. I was painting in front of the art spot here back in May, and she approached me and she said, you know, I had all these colorful paintings right in front of the art spot and Tracy is very nice to allow me to, you know, paint there. Mhmm. It was on the third Thursday.

And she asked me she said she liked the colors that I was using in my paintings and so on and could I would I do do I do would I do I take commissions? And I said well yeah I’d like you know and she said I would like you to do a portrait of my son Christopher Martin. What would you charge? And I told her, you know, and so she said, Okay, okay. She wanted me to do that.

Then she said that her son had committed suicide a year ago, about fourteen months ago. This was in May, it was June I mean. And so I agreed and I took it upon myself of course to attempt to do this thing. She wanted him to be in the portrait. Yeah.

Kind of like abstractly so she said. Yeah. Trying to get the family in there a little bit. You know, she had something tattooed on her wrist that reminded her of Christopher and her husband had had something tattooed on his ankle, a Celtic cross on his ankle and she wanted to see that somehow in the painting. And she had this heart with the Christian cross bisecting it on her wrist and she wanted that in there.

Anyway so I set about painting this great big gigantic painting four feet by six feet to represent that. I And know I’m kind of beating around the bush a little bit of how to get to your question. What has it done for me? Yeah. I’ll get there quickly.

We got all day. Okay. So I painted this painting and I got the Christian cross in there and I got the Celtic cross in there and I got all the colors he wanted in this great big painting and it was very abstract, was very very cool, but I I stepped back and said, where’s Christopher? Because I hadn’t been able I’m not a portraitist. Yeah.

And I got supposed to make this young man look like him. I got a, you know, a headshot of him, a great headshot of him to look at. And so I was flummoxed by it because I just I was really kind of fearful I guess you would say to attempt to do a portrait of someone actually make them look like themselves. Yeah. And so one night one late afternoon Carol had left me to go somewhere right and that it was a beautiful afternoon on the deck of our house.

We live right on Olympic View Drive, got the gorgeous view of the mountains and the water, all of this stuff and I thought she’s gone. I think I’ll pour myself a little martini. So I poured myself a martini and I had some paint and a canvas laying out there just happened to be laying out there a big white big canvas four foot by four foot canvas. Anyway I poured myself a martini and yeah that really tasted good. Carol’s not here I wonder if I should pour a second one.

I said okay Carol’s not here I will. So I had two martinis. Yep. And then I thought well two are good three are better so I drank a third. And then I’m looking at this canvas and I’m thinking I think I’ll paint something.

So I grabbed like everything was right in front of me. Had a spatula like a turner, a pancake turner there Yeah. Metal pancake turner, the canvas, some white and black and paint and I just tore into this canvas. I got down on my hands and knees and I just start painting this thing. I paint I paint I paint this thing and here I’ve got this big swirl of white and black paint.

Look, oh, it’s just crazily good, I think. Yeah. And the following morning, and I named it right then and there, three martinis. That’s the name of that’s the name of the painting. Nice.

So the following morning, and this is about getting to the question lightly, the following morning I get up and I’m standing in this our studio which is a living room, dining room area of the house, and on this great big easel I’ve got this painting. And I look at that painting and I think to myself, I wonder if Christopher, this was a thought that runs through my head. Now remember it’s black and white and this well aligned painting itself with lots of color. Yeah. And I think to myself, I wonder if Christopher would like this.

Oh my God, here’s what happens. This vibration starts around on my ankles and starts working its way up my legs and it is some kind of an electromagnetic field of some sort that is just whooshing through my entire body.

Peter: Wow.

Doug: And it got about mid torso and I said out loud, Chris do you like this? And it just exploded on me. It was the most unbelievable incident of any kind that I’ve ever had almost because I knew that the soul spirit of Christopher William Martin was standing in right there with me looking at this painting I about fell over. Wow. Then I thought maybe it’s time to take a crack at painting him.

So I grabbed a thirty six thirty six by 48 inch canvas Yep. Put it on the easel and started painting him and I nailed it. I got him. I got him cold. Unbelievable.

It wasn’t like I got him in that second. It took me a day or two to get it finished and when I was done it was I just stood there awestruck. I did this. No. I didn’t do this.

I was guided by this. Yeah. Where? How? How does that work?

I just finished a book called The War on Art and written by a guy named I think Steve Pressfield. Okay. He talks about that. He talks about that sort of thing that it’s like where does that inspiration come from? So it has introduced me back to the question.

Yeah. It has introduced me to the muse. But he has another way of saying

Peter: Okay.

Doug: You’re angels. Yeah. And so to further identify that the angels, the muse, a second person contacted me after hearing about my painting of Christopher Martin. Deborah Gettleman is her name. Deborah Gettleman’s local and she’s an actor, actress, director, writer.

She said when she heard about me she said, Oh my God. My good friend Francine Sumner, she says, has a gala in Phoenix coming up in December, Deborah says to herself. And so I’m gonna talk to Doug, and she did. And because Francine Sumner’s son Zachary had committed suicide at age 16 also about a year ago and asked me if I would do pro bono a painting of him. And I at that point I fairly lapped at the idea.

Yay. I said, so I get his picture. A young kid, you know, 16 years old, shot himself. These these people that the parents don’t mind me talking about. Right.

These because they authorized me to do so.

Peter: Yes.

Doug: And I didn’t know that he had how he had committed, how he had taken his own life by suicide, Zachary. I didn’t know at that time either how Chris had done it, but and I never wanted to ask, but that was all volunteered to me later. So I started painting a portrait of Zachary, and I had an awful time with this particular one. I could get just all I ended up was kind of a white blob, you know, for a face in the middle of this nice canvas and had a background on and everything. And one night I went to bed thinking I’m gonna have to give up on this.

I can’t do this. I’m just not able to nail this. I just don’t have it. If I quit I’m not even gonna paint anymore kind of thought. But again I got up in the morning and I took a look at as I walked by the canvas because luckily we standing, I have to walk right by it to get in the kitchen, that’s in the studio.

And as I walked by it I got right to it and I went, wait a minute. And I, this is the muse, this is your better angels, this is whatever you want to call it. I just luckily I have brushes and paint cans, I have gallons of paint and quarts of paint all over the place and I just tore into it. About ten minutes later I got him. I had him.

I had him. I had fought and fought with this thing and what is that? Where does that come from? Where does that come from? It’s certainly not any training that I’ve had.

Peter: Right.

Doug: It is it’s like your angels. Those angels that are around you, you’re the muse. You know a lot of people don’t believe in this stuff, but I do. Mhmm. You know actually if you actually have that happen to you, you’ll believe in it too.

Peter: Right.

Doug: So how has this impacted my life, if that’s the word to use, hugely. Every time I think, I’m not gonna I thought that this morning. Something happened yesterday that made me think I don’t think I want to paint anymore. And then I get up and look around and go hey this is nuts, this is really a lot of fun. Yeah it has given us both Carol and I and Carol is just my best backer, my best friend, my best everything.

Right? But it’s given both of us, me probably more than her because I’m the one doing the actual painting A sense of purpose.

Peter: Are there any businesses along the way that where you had not necessarily a similar experience, but something where you really felt like you were doing what you should be doing and it really was, you know, something that was a success? Whether monetarily successful or a success in some other way?

Doug: Rarely.

Peter: Rarely.

Doug: Rarely. I’d like Winston Churchill famously said, I go from one failure to the next. And that’s my life, I think. Well as far as business goes, you know, there were businesses where I went through bankruptcy twice, once when I was just a kid. Yeah.

You know, I didn’t know back in the sixties. Yeah. You know, I actually went through bankruptcy over you would think today, Oh my god, why did you do that? And then later for a much bigger reason in 1960 or ’79 or so or ’80. I was in bankruptcy over some real estate dealings at work.

A lot of developers had that happen to them at that time.

Peter: So

Doug: I’ve been successful as a salesperson at numerous occasions in my life with real estate, especially working with Greg Hoff at Windermere. Yep. I mean he gave he gives everybody a great opportunity to be successful, Greg Hoff does. And that was monetarily. All that was money.

I’ve never ever had success like I have had, oh here’s an opportunity for me to give you an example. Let’s say back when I was selling real estate, if you sell just don’t want to give up all the secrets of real estate, but you know if a realtor lists a house and sells for a million dollars say, their listing commission is $30,000 Okay. You know, you write up a little piece of paper, it’s a lot more complex than that. But you know, you write, sit down with somebody, write up some paper and you stick it out on the internet and somebody comes along and buys it and Craig Hoff writes you a check for $30,000 Right. It’s like, oh my god.

How could this be happening? $30,000.

Peter: Yeah.

Doug: I sold that first painting, when I should say when Mike Keeley bought that first painting for $650, to me that was like $51,000,000 sales. Wow. $650. This is something I actually produced and I actually did something. Right.

You know? So that I compare this art back to that success and and the art is far greater because for some or what well, I don’t I know the reasons why, but the when someone purchases a painting one thing that happens then is the artist is instantly validated. There’s a validation money is energy. That’s all money is is energy. So that person who purchases a painting from me has validated me by actually giving me some energy and they take away something from it.

I mean they take this painting instead of paying $6.50 or a thousand dollars for a couch, they’ve got a painting that’s gonna hang on their house for years and years and years and years and never goes down in value, probably goes up. So what it is, it’s a matter of love I think. This is what love is all about. This idea that happiness enters into this in a great way. I’m very happy too while I was doing the painting.

I’m very happy when somebody comes along and purchases the painting and the person who gets it is very very happy with it and it comes back comes back 10 or a 100 times more from a love standpoint than originated as originated. So that’s I don’t know how that reflects back on the question because I just wander off here all over the place, that’s the way I am.

Peter: That’s that’s fair. So one of the questions I ask all my guests is how do you define life done well?

Doug: I think that’s a good question. It’s when you receive ideas and act on them and through that manifestation of the idea, and an idea is comes from somewhere else. I mean, who’s the thinker of the thought? The idea comes in. We think we think of that idea.

And then but then to take that idea to move on that nudge, that hunch, to move on it and actually produce something that’s sort of a heavenly thing to do that, right? It’s part of the universe is speaking to you. And so a life done well, is that the question?

Peter: Yeah. What is life? How would you define

Doug: I life would done say it is living and acting and speaking. I’m actually quoting somebody now, but think that I can remember things from the 1960s. With living, acting, speaking with great enthusiasm and passing that enthusiasm on to other people. A life done well is when a person meets someone and that person who they meet feels better after meeting you than they felt before.

Peter: Right.

Doug: Over and over and over and over and over again. That’s a life lived and done well if that’s the reaction that you get from people when you speak to them.

Peter: That’s good.

Doug: I mean, you can talk about raising kids and all that wonderful stuff, but when you’re 81 or 82 years old, we’re both gonna be 82. You know, there’s always this thing. What is your greatest success? Oh, it’s raising kids and this, you know, getting my kids through college and all that sort of stuff everywhere. It’s just we’re just all parroting that to each other, but it’s true.

That’s a great great great success to do that. But later on you look at things a little bit differently.

Peter: Right.

Doug: Now I am looking at life. Was this a life done well? In a way, other another answer to that is a life done well is a life living right smack dab now. Being aware of where you are and what you’re doing. Right.

I think a life done well is not to set all these goals that we always talk about and let the goals just let this stuff just come in naturally. Setting goals by the way can be harmful in a way because they always say people always say you hear it all the time, be careful what you’ll pray for. Right? Right. Because you may get that.

Yes. You know? Yeah. So as best a life done well is one acting on circumstances as they occur and saying yes. Saying yes and I that I could talk about this sort of stuff.

And living outside your comfort zone. Now you’ve got me going. That is where it’s really life. Out on what’s known as the chaotic edge. Get out there and scare the hell out of yourself.

Get out. That’s like when I went out and painted on the street. Every time I go out and painted on the street I scare the hell out of myself.

Peter: Well

Doug: I scare the hell out of myself all the time.

Peter: Well the Edmunds drivers.

Doug: Yeah Especially old people like us. I mean

Peter: Well, I didn’t wanna say anything.

Doug: Yeah. Fifth And Main. Just be careful.

Peter: Get out there and do that. Live on the edge. That’s great. I wanna go back to one thing you said about creating, and how that reminded me of a thought with respect to our relationship to God, which is, you know, God’s a creator.

Doug: Right.

Peter: And we’re a reflection of God.

Doug: Right.

Peter: We’re creators.

Doug: Exactly. I agree with that 100%, all of it. Whoever, whatever you think of as God, God, all, all, you know, God, Goddess, all that is, whoever that entity is, however you think about that entity, Yes, we are a microcosm of the universe. As every atom they say in the universe is, and we’re just a whole bunch of atoms stacked up in a pile, you know.

Peter: So, know Bunch of electrons spinning around.

Doug: Yeah, exactly. I was thinking about that just the other day. Read something that an atom, I read this in New York Times, they were talking about measuring measurements. Yeah. And an atom oscillates something like 1,000,970,000,000 somewhat.

They know the exact number, write down the exact number, per second. 1,000,000,000,000. You think this thing is solid? I mean anything you look at, I mean each atom is oscillating a trillion times, over a trillion times a second. Man you talk about a lot of energy out there.

And that by the way when I had that vibration roll over me after painting before I started painting Christopher, that’s what that energy is. When you feel that you’re feeling that electrical energy pouring through you. It’s an amazing thing. One other thing happened when I had painted both of the boys that had committed suicide. Yeah.

I had them up on basically two different easels we’ll say. And then I had also painted a painting of somebody that I referred to as mother ayahuasca. I have never taken ayahuasca. I don’t take drugs, do drugs, but ayahuasca is a Peruvian or South American drug that’s kind of moving its way around the world.

Peter: You

Doug: drink this stuff and you connect to the universe, for

Peter: some Right, right.

Doug: So I painted a painting of what I thought mother ayahuasca looked like. Mother ayahuasca is supposed like the female, the female the spirit the female spirit of Christ. One way of saying who Ayahuasca, what what they’ve turned mother Ayahuasca. So I paint a painting of what I think she would look like, an Ayahuasca, four feet by four feet and I put her right in between these these two paintings of this boy said have both taken their life by suicide Zach and Christopher. And as I was standing there one evening with dim light kind of dim light just soft light in the living room Carol was maybe in bed sleeping or something but I was out there all by myself and I was looking at these three and this feeling of love came down over me.

Was this huge warmth just flowed over me. Brought me to tears. Wow. Because I was in the midst of this relationship with I know to be the universe. It like a fit, you could feel it was like a blessing.

And people always talk about blessings. You know bless bless you know all these blessings come from everybody. But if you get involved in one where you’re actually blessed where you actually feel it, you say, wow, this is this is some kind of a thing that’s going on here right now. That’s what life is all about. This is being in the present.

This is being in the now.

Peter: Wow. That’s fascinating. What a blessing you’ve been to these these people that lost their their loved ones.

Doug: Oh, I gotta tell you, it is astonishing. I am no hero in this thing. That’s for sure. I’m just, you know, I’m somebody who paints. But what reflects back to me from these two mothers and the father of Christopher is it was when you feel some what the kind of love I get back from those guys.

It’s I’m not so sure I deserve all this. You know? You know it’s it’s just it’s why one lives I think. I mean it’s why I’m living anyway. Guess I shouldn’t say why one lives.

It’s a good reason to be around.

Peter: Well you’ve tapped into something.

Doug: Mhmm. I’ve tapped into

Peter: something You’ve tapped into something and other people recognize it.

Doug: Yes. And the see, we just shipped yesterday two or three or four days ago, shipped off to Boston the painting of Christopher. Well, actually, went to Edmunds first. They have a home here. The Martins have a home here in Edmunds and one in Boston and one in Nantucket fortunately for them.

And anyway, that was went through the process of being shipped, and then the painting of Zachary Sumner was also shipped at the same time. The party, Francine Sumner, the mother of Zach, received it yesterday. And I got a and when she she texted me, when she opened it up, was created, she opened it up, she was just absolutely totally overwhelmed at what she was looking at, you know, a portrait of her son. It was big too. She tells me that, you know.

Yeah. That’s all. I just don’t know how to explain all that. Wish everyone would have an experience like I’ve had with that sort of giving.

Peter: Yeah. That’s a special story. I really am glad you’ve shared it with us. So you mentioned a few books, you mentioned Winston Churchill and others. Are there any books in particular that you know you really would recommend to others to you know, this book here you gotta go read it?

Doug: Yes, you mean for art for example or just in general? Any topic. Any topic.

Peter: At all.

Doug: There are okay there are two I in nineteen eighty six I was introduced to my wife Margie at that time. She wouldn’t study much but she would say she would read something and say you’ve got to read this. I mean she’d read about a book and then she just said no. So she had read in Psychology Today back in 1986 she said hey there’s a there’s this this book these books have been written called A Course in Miracles and I think you ought to read it. And so really?

I said, you want to read it? No. She said, I think you ought to read A Course in Miracles. So I went out and I bought A Course in Miracles which I couldn’t understand really because it’s turned out it’s a channeled reading. It’s been channeled by someone at Columbia University professor and heard this voice and written every word of it.

It took her years to write this whole thing, and it was allegedly the voice of Jesus Christ or the voice of the Christ Spirit. That was I would suggest that as a reading although that’s very intense and it falls right in line with Christianity and some Eastern philosophies and all of That’s a that’s not a modern day book. And then another book I read that I still read is a book by a seer by the name of Edgar Cayce who wrote some he never wrote anything himself, but great deal has been written about him. But he wrote somebody, again, was a mathematics professor up in Toronto I think Mhmm. Wrote this thing, The Edgar Cayce Companion.

That book has all this spiritual stuff and it’s all super positive things, you know, that are really really good for you. Mhmm. Then we both Carol and I love to read it out loud to one another. You know so we’ve read the biographies of Theodore Teddy Roosevelt, General Ulysses S. Grant, and Lincoln to name a few.

Those biographies are so powerful that we’ve just recently read all of those. And Einstein and the book about Steve Jobs. We’ve read those books. And now for artists, any artist should read Steve Pressfield’s book War on Art because there he’s talking about the very thing we’re talking about here, very spiritual, that you know this has probably been the most meaningful book to me recently in a long time. It’s very short old book too, but it talks speaks to resistance.

Resistance and procrastination. These are our enemies. That’s our ego. That’s fear. Resistance is fear.

And so since I read that book and since I got together with Carol, but anyway since I read that book, well now I really in particular when I say now I mean right now, Like within these days that we’re in right now. When I walk by a canvas or something and I think maybe I should do this, I just do it right then and there. No procrastination. That’s resistance. When I walk up to one of my canvases in the studio and say, think I’ll go have a cup of coffee or call Clayton Moss, my good friend Clayton Moss, and go drink coffee, and I think, uh-oh, there’s resistance.

Get back to the get back to the idea of the campus because my greater angels are flowing all around me right now. Let’s get after this deal. So that book and he speaks to in War on Art War of Art War on Art I think. But anyway maybe I got the title wrong of all things that yes is the answer to most things. I mean, say yes.

I gave a little talk a couple weeks ago to Art Artists Connect, I think they call it, down here on Third Street, Third And Dayton, Second And Dayton. I I I was president of local rotary club, I’m not unaccompanied standing up and talking in front of people. Yeah. Now I was going invited to talk to a bunch of artists, peers. Like, there were, 30 or 35 people that I spoke to that were better artists than me, and I’m gonna talk to them how to do art.

That’ll give me Did you

Peter: get booed out of the room or

Doug: I felt like I should have been. But anyway, that was where I just said, you asked me, you, sis, very thing we’re doing right now, would you like to come in and do a podcast? Yeah. I think, okay. Yes.

So say yes. That’s right.

Peter: Say yes.

Doug: Say yes.

Peter: That’s the secret to a good life.

Doug: It is a secret to a good life. Say yes.

Peter: So before we wrap up, what else do you want to say?

Doug: Before we go there, I just want to say this. That if you’re out there listening to this, listener, keep this in mind that it’s never over till it’s over. Because I’m telling you that if you’re in your late seventies or early eighties and even in your fifties where you think it’s all over or something for God’s sakes, that there’s it’s never too late to learn or start something new. Get off your ass and do something. That’s my advice to anybody.

Say yes, do something. Even if it’s wrong, that’s it.

Peter: Thank you, Doug and Carol. It’s been my pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

Doug: I hope it turns out well.

Peter: I have no doubt. Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again.

We’ll see you soon.