Eating a peach, in season, perfectly ripe, is pure magic. But also messy.Oh, sure, you can eat peaches before they’re ripe and they might drip less, but they’re not nearly as good. The best peaches are always messy.Now I’ll admit it: I prefer tidy. I like the structure of a good plan. I feel good when the dishes are done and the counter is cleared. I’m easily disturbed when piles stay piles for too long.Is that an Adultitis-fueled trait? Perhaps. But I do find that I am more present, relaxed, and creative when clutter and chaos are minimized. In general, I don’t think it’s a terrible trait to …
Are You Playing the Wrong Game?
"All-American" by Jason Kotecki. 40 x 40 inches, Oil on canvas.Original is SOLD. Prints available here. This buffalo is terrible at golf.I know what you’re thinking, “Jason, Jason...this is a bison, not a buffalo.”Yes, apparently this is a bison. I grew up calling it a buffalo, but whatever. Either way, it’s like a wooly mammoth version of a cow. And it is an American icon. And they're a lot fewer of them than there used to be.Like the bison that once roamed the Midwestern plains by the millions, the American Dream is fading away. It’s not gone, it’s just different. It used to involve a …
The Life-Changing Magic of Gesso
Last week, Kim documented some behind-the-scenes footage of me creating in my studio. She didn’t catch me in a very glamorous task; I was merely prepping some wood panels with a coat of gesso.Gesso (pronounced JEH-so) is a fancy artist word. It’s basically a primer used on wood, canvas, and other materials to seal the surface and provide a suitable surface for the paint to adhere to. Naturally, it’s typically utilized in the beginning. But it can also be used to start over. I subscribe to the Bob Ross philosophy that there really are no mistakes, only happy accidents. If I don’t like how …
Make Way for Greatness: What Our Kids Really Need
The ganache wasn’t very ganachey. A rose kept falling off. And it was a little lopsided. But that didn’t make the cake my kids made for my anniversary any less a work of art, or a gift of love.It started as their desire to do something nice for our twentieth wedding anniversary. Since we’ve been binge-watching Kids Baking Championship, we gave them a challenge. They had to design and bake a cake that represented both Mom and Dad (a worthy challenge considering Kim and I fall on opposite ends of the dessert spectrum). It also needed to be at least two layers and be made from scratch. We …
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Own This Moment
"Own This Moment" by Jason Kotecki. 12x12 oil on canvas.Prints available. The great philosopher Marshall Mathers, also known as Eminem, once said, Look...if you had one shotOr one opportunityTo seize everything you ever wantedIn one momentWould you capture itOr just let it slip?You better lose yourself in the music, the momentYou own it, you better never let it goYou only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blowThis opportunity comes once in a lifetime– "Lose Yourself" by Eminem It may seem weird to think of this moment in which we find ourselves as the opportunity of a lifetime. …
Why I Hope Things Don’t Get Back to Normal
It seems we are all yearning for a return to normal. I know what people mean when they say it – I say it myself, and what we have, right now, is not normal. But in truth, I really don’t want to return to normal.As we inch slowly closer to a resolution of this crisis, it might be worth asking a question that was posed when the shelter-in-place guidelines began: What is essential? We’ve been given a gift. This pause has been an unprecedented (anyone up for making that the official word of 2020?) opportunity to examine our lives and our society with a new perspective.For example, are all of …
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You Aren’t Living a Net-Zero Life, Are You?
"Shade Tree" by Jason Kotecki. Acrylic on watercolor paper Can something be good for the environment, but really bad for people?Yep.In discussions about how to best care for our planet, you’ll often hear about the importance of carbon neutrality, which refers to having net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. Net-zero is the result when there’s neither a surplus nor a deficit of something specified when gains and losses are added together. It is often used to describe buildings that produce enough energy (as through solar panels or passive heating) to offset any energy consumed.It occurred to me …
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The Only Hard Choice
"Ice Cream of Liberty" by Jason Kotecki.Watercolor and colored pencil on paper. My family loves teasing me about how, when I was a wee lad, I’d cry over the simplest decisions. Being forced to choose between a vanilla or chocolate ice cream cone caused a full-on existential crisis.I like to think I’ve made progress in this area over the past forty years, but some decisions are still hard.Although the choice of ice cream flavor doesn’t have as much gravity for me as it once did, the fact remains: The only hard choice is the choice between two good things. That observation comes from Roy H. …
Regret Prevention 101
For better or for worse, my to-do list does a bang-up job of keeping me busy. I add to it, celebrate when tasks get crossed off, and stress over the ones that linger too long. It can often feel like I am the servant of my to-do list.Adding a layer of regret prevention has helped it to serve me.Recently we were explaining the concept of “decades” to our kids and how we were starting a whole new one. It occurred to me and Kim that when this one is over, we’ll have two teenagers and Lucy will likely be moved out. Yikes. Meanwhile, I'm still over here clinging to the 1980s and 90s.I was …
Outgrowing Our Sense of Wonder
C Plane by Jason Kotecki. 20x20 inches. Oil on canvas.Original is SOLD. Prints available. Remember alphabet soup? I ask you to remember because the last time you had it probably wasn’t yesterday, or last week. It may have been a decade or four. Something about alphabet soup brings out a sense of wonder and curiosity in us as kids. We stir it around to see if any secret messages emerge randomly, like a vegetable fueled Ouiji board. We use our spoon to carefully arrange our own words, spell our name, a simple sentence, or maybe a dirty word...Just me? But then we outgrow alphabet …
