Being an Artist. Being an Author.

Being an Artist. Being an Author.

I've been an artist for as long as I can remember. It feels established. Familiar.

I almost said normal, but let's be serious; there's nothing particularly normal about choosing a life where you repeatedly create something deeply personal and then put it in front of strangers to judge.

But I've been doing it long enough that I understand the rhythm of it.

I've experienced the acceptance and the rejection. The sales and the not today. The incredible moments when someone says, "I'll take all of these," and the other days when you're standing there thinking, If I could just cover my expenses today, that would be great.

And after all these years, selling a painting still feels amazing.

Someone choosing to live with something I created will never become ordinary to me.

But becoming an author has been different. I'm still trying to understand exactly why.

I've written throughout my life; music, poetry, random thoughts scribbled on whatever was nearby; but writing a book and sending it out into the world has exposed a completely different part of me.

Maybe it's more personal. Maybe it's more vulnerable. Or maybe it's because of the way it comes back.

I'll be going about my day and suddenly receive a message from someone:

"I just finished your book."

And my heart immediately stops for half a second. Then I read things like:

"The characters are clear, and I feel like they are my friends." Or: "I could feel every emotion as if I were watching a movie."

Or someone saying the characters' "struggles, dreams, and personal growth felt genuine and relatable."

One reader wrote that the book captured "the good and the messy parts of life."

Another said it was "the kind of work that makes you feel."

And then there's probably my favorite kind of review:

"This book needs to be a movie!!!"

How am I supposed to act normal after reading that? Granted, I'm a crier.

I think most artists are emotional basket cases to some degree. Which makes it particularly funny that we've chosen a profession that requires us to continually expose some of the most intimate pieces of ourselves to the world.

Go figure. But there's something different about hearing from a reader.

When someone buys one of my paintings, I know something about it connected with them. Maybe it was the colors. Maybe the movement. Maybe it reminded them of something or simply made them feel good when they looked at it.

With a book, they spend hours inside something I created. They meet people who once existed only inside my head.

They worry about them. Root for them. Recognize pieces of themselves in them.

And then sometimes they reach back through the pages and tell me about it.

That's the part I wasn't prepared for.

Daniel, Claire, Marcus and Julian lived with me long before The Canvas We Share became a book. I knew their friendships, their mistakes, their fears, their heartbreaks and the things they weren't quite ready to say out loud.

Then I let them go. And somehow, they became yours too. Maybe that's the difference I'm feeling.

A painting leaves my studio and begins a new life on someone else's wall.

A book leaves my hands and begins a new life inside someone else's imagination.

That's an incredibly strange and beautiful thing.

So when you send me a message saying you stayed up late reading another chapter, or that one of the characters reminded you of yourself, or that something in the story made you laugh, cry, think about an old friend—or even want to pick up a paintbrush again—I hope you know that those messages don't disappear into some author abyss.

I read them. I feel them. And yes, sometimes I cry over them.

Because somewhere along the way, this thing I created stopped belonging entirely to me.

It became something we shared. And considering the title of the book...

I suppose I should have seen that coming. The Canvas We Share
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