Dream Big

“Angry Eagle” by Jason Kotecki. 16″ x 20″. Oil on canvas.Original is SOLD. Prints available here. I spent nearly seven years writing and drawing a comic strip that wasn’t successful. Well, that’s not entirely true. People enjoyed it. It had fans. And it made a little bit of money. But it never got syndicated and didn’t generate a big enough audience or enough revenue to earn a living. And so I had to stop. It was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do, especially after pouring so much time, energy and money into that endeavor. Seven years of developing the discipline to sit down and write, even on days when no ideas come. Seven years spent drawing comic strips in a humid apartment with no air conditioning. Seven years learning the basics of business, of profit margins and net income and balance sheets. Seven years of sinking deeper into debt as we tried one idea after another in the quest to make a profit. It was a hard dream to let go of. I was …

[Read more...] about How to Tell When Your Dream is Not Really Your Dream

"Cupcakes Are Miracles" by Jason Kotecki. Oil on canvas. Original is SOLD. Prints and canvas reproductions available here. I’ve wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. Especially after I found out that the roles of being George Lucas or Superman were already taken. Like most artists, I started out making “copies." I drew Simpsons characters and portraits of athletes and celebrities. It was how I learned my craft. As Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, "Everybody imitates before they can innovate. My first real attempt at saying something original was through comics. First a sports panel cartoon I did in college called Obstructed View, then a comic strip called Kim & Jason. I became inspired by people like Charles Schulz (Peanuts) and Sam Butcher (Precious Moments), and I decided that I wanted to use my art to make a difference. I was convinced that Kim & Jason was the way I was destined to do that. I had big dreams and we worked really hard to make it successful. …

[Read more...] about Believing in Miracles

I love encouraging people to think of themselves as artists, regardless of whether they can draw a convincing bowl of fruit. Because my definition of artist goes beyond people who can draw or paint or sing or sculpt or dance. I think Martin Luther King, Jr. was an artist, not just because he was a great orator, but because he took a stand for something. That’s what artists do. The problem is that examples like this are pretty intimidating. I am no Martin Luther King, Jr. And, no offense, but neither are you. The thing we forget is that neither was he. At least not the MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. we think of today, the larger-than-life American hero who has his own holiday and over 730 streets named in his honor. He was an imperfect man who tried to make the world a better place. Even though a million people followed him eventually, it’s important to note that those first few steps were small and quiet and mostly unnoticed. Don’t be fooled into believing that you can’t make a …

[Read more...] about Dream On, Artist

It would seem that the subject of possibility and it's pessimistic cousin, impossibility, is shaping up to be quite the theme around here. Not only did I make art and write about it, but I just read a book about it and I'm finding that I'm living it as well. It all started in January when Kim and I declared our intent for our business to become debt-free by the end of this year. We have a fairly sizable loan we are slowly paying back, a formidable pile of liability accumulated during our early years in which we were figuring out how to turn our passion into a real business. Alas, the real business was found but the debt remains. Now, we pay down this loan little by little every month, and should all go according to plan, it will be absolved in the summer of 2017. Getting rid of it by the end of 2013? Impossible. And yet, as the year goes on, what once seemed unthinkable is gradually becoming inevitable. I picked up this t-shirt at Disney World a few weeks ago. I had …

[Read more...] about It’s Kind of Fun to Try the Impossible

I wonder if the Wright Brothers ever imagined that less than 100 years after their first manned flight, we'd have already taken air travel for granted. And we do, don't we? Thousands of these "crazy flying machines" take off and land every single day. And yet, at one point, the idea was as crazy as could be. In fact, in 1902 (just ONE year before the Wright Brothers' great success), Lord Kelvin -- the dude who determined the correct value of absolute zero as approximately -273.15 Celsius -- said, “No aeroplane will ever be practically successful.” Back in the late 1800s, the idea of Orville and Wilbur building a flying machine is kind of like someone today boasting about working on a teleportation device. And they way we take it for granted is like my great grandchild giving a talk 100 years from now saying, “Can you believe there was a time we didn’t have teleportation devices?” …

[Read more...] about Before There Were Teleportation Devices