Keyword: fish

  • Evening Show

    “Evening Show” by Jason Kotecki. 24 x 30. Oil on canvas.
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    A clear night sky is a thing of beauty, with millions of stars blinking silently overhead.

    It’s a pity we rarely notice them.

    In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David is speaking with a receptionist at a law firm who has a spectacular view of the city behind her. “Beautiful view here! How long did it take you to take it for granted?”

    She replies, “Umm, not long I guess.”

    He candidly admits, “It would take me about a day. Maybe less. Maybe half an hour. And I would never look out the window again.”

    How quickly we take wonder for granted.

    This painting was inspired by a passage I read in the book The Sense of Wonder, by conservationist Rachel Carson, who wrote about a summer her grandnephew visited her cottage in Maine, and together they wandered the surrounding woods and tide pools.

    She recounted a particular evening when they gazed in awe at one of those breathtaking night skies: 

    “It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century or even once in a human generation, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages, and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night perhaps they will never see it.”

    Because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they will never see it.

    This painting takes its inspiration from those lights burning in the cottages, with the inhabitants giving not a thought of the beauty overhead.

    What if a party of giant glowing jellyfish appeared above your town and put on a light show? Surely that would get your attention.

    But what if it happened every year? Every week? Every night? How long would it take before everyone stopped caring?

    Not as long as you’d think.

    Apollo 11 landed on the moon. It was a huge source of national pride. Half a billion people were glued to their television sets watching the historic achievement.

    Nine months later—nine months!—flights to the moon had already become boring. By the time Apollo 13 came around, the television networks didn’t even bother covering the launch or broadcasting the live video of the crew from space because they felt there wasn’t enough interest. Nobody wanted their soap operas or game shows interrupted by another group of heroes doing what most people had never done before. Only until Apollo 13 got into trouble did anyone care.

    We grow numb to wonder.

    Look around you. What are you taking for granted? What are you missing?

    Be honest: When was the last time you gazed at the stars?

    Stood in awe at a sunrise bursting forth with color on the horizon?

    Sat in silence amidst the peace of a placid snowfall?

    I don’t know about you, but I am disgusted by this propensity to grow numb to wonder.

    But can we do anything about it?

    Fortunately, Rachel Carson shows us a way:

    “One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?”

    One painting and two powerful questions remind us to keep our eyes peeled for the wonder all around us.

  • Pretty Darn Great

    “Pretty Darn Great” by Jason Kotecki. 40 x 60. Oil on canvas.
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    This shark is awesome. You can tell how awesome he is by his gold teeth. Obviously, the male sharks want to be him, and all the ladies want to be with him. The fact that he is a success is a foregone conclusion to everyone.

    The joke is on the shark, though, because these teeth are not long for this world. You see, sharks continually shed their teeth (some shedding approximately 35,000 teeth in a lifetime!) That’s a lot of lost bling. What a shame!

    The tragedy is that gold grill or no, he already was great. He just didn’t believe it.

    I don’t know about you, but I make this mistake all the time.

    I chase after shiny objects that don’t last to prove my worth, even though deep down I don’t always feel so worthy.

    When I was in seventh grade, I would have given anything for a pair of Air Jordans. I didn’t feel cool, but I was certain these shoes would make up for it. I never got them. It’s just as well, I guess, because they wouldn’t have fit me a year later. 

    Back at the turn of the century, Apple came out with the iBook. The lime green one was awesome. I printed out a picture and put it on my vision board, imagining that my possession of it would make me hip and trendy. Never got it. Of course, if I still had it today, it would be little more than a decorative doorstep. 

    I have dreams of owning a Porsche 911 convertible someday. I think they are beautiful cars, and I love driving convertibles (my dad used to have one). But can I be honest? Sometimes I wonder if the real reason I want it is to have something to show everyone how great and successful I am.

    Now, my faith teaches me that I am wonderfully made in the image of my creator. Frankly, it’s a little hard to believe, most days. After all, I wear bifocals now. My hair is thinning. I eat lots of gluten. 

    Interestingly, my perspective changes when I think about my own kids. Are they perfect? Hells no. (They take after their old man after all). But they are great. It’s not hard at all for me to see their amazing qualities. And the kind of shoes they’re wearing has nothing to do with it. 

    Why is it so easy to see the positive traits of others and so hard to see them in ourselves?

    There are people out there who are a little too big for their britches. But even in those cases, once you collect a certain amount of wisdom, you realize that all the bombast and overconfidence are merely masking their own unworthiness.

    Indeed, most of us are overwhelmed by our flaws and sell ourselves short. We believe the TV and magazine ads that tell us we need to fix this, tuck that, and acquire the new gizmo to feel complete. I don’t know if you can relate, but I often feel suffocated by thoughts that I’m not enough. Not smart enough. Not talented enough. Not brave enough. Each one is like a weed, crowding out the truth. 

    The good thing about this feeling of “not enough” is that it helps us make room for God. His power is made perfect in our weakness. He picks up the slack and nullifies our deficiencies. We are truly in danger when we think we can do this thing called life alone. 

    You and I, we are already great. And not in some lame, everybody-gets-a-participation-trophy way.

    First, some perspective. Do you know the odds of you even being here? Dr. Ali Binazir crunched the numbers, and when you factor in the probability of your dad meeting your mom…

    …and that they stayed together long enough to have kids…

    …and the fact that one of the 100,000 eggs your mom produces in her lifetime…

    …met the one of the 4 trillion sperm your dad made during the years you could have been born…

    …there is a 1 in 400,000,000,000,000,000 (1 in 400 quadrillion chance) of you being alive.

    The chance of you being attacked and killed by a shark is about 1 in 4,000,000.

    Statistically speaking, you are a miracle. Having beaten odds like that suggests there is a reason you are here. And indeed, there is. You have something to offer that the world needs.

    You see, the real reason for your greatness is that you were purposefully and wonderfully made by a loving God. Within you – amidst any so-called flaws you dwell on – is a spark of something divine. That, my friend, makes you priceless.

    “When I was a child my parents loved me not because I was good but because I was Madeleine, their child. I loved them, and I wanted to please them, but their love of me did not have to be earned. Neither does the love of God. We are loved because we are his children, because we are.”

    – Madeleine L’Engle

    You don’t have to keep trying to prove yourself. You can just be. 

    You may not be perfect, but you are already great.

    Gold teeth or no.

  • Own This Moment

    “Own This Moment” by Jason Kotecki. 12 x 12. Oil on canvas.
    Original is SOLD 🔴 Shop this art!

    The great philosopher Marshall Mathers, also known as Eminem, once said,

    Look…if you had one shot
    Or one opportunity
    To seize everything you ever wanted
    In one moment
    Would you capture it
    Or just let it slip?

    You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
    You own it, you better never let it go
    You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
    This 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. After all, none of us asked for it, and all of us wish we could get back to some semblance of normal sooner rather than later.

    Yet here we are, amidst the moment we’ve been waiting for, which has arrived dressed in unremarkable clothing.

    This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to pivot our organizations to serve people in new and better ways. To improve ourselves by taking a class or learning a valuable skill. To lay the groundwork for a brand new business that will prevent us from having to go back to the old job that wasn’t lighting us up. To strengthen the relationships we have neglected. 

    Perhaps more than anything, this is an occasion to take a long, hard look at our lives and determine if the direction we were heading is really the direction we want to be going. 

    Don’t be fooled by the dire straits trumpeted by the media all day long. Things are not always what they appear to be. Unprecedented times are rich with unprecedented opportunities.

    If you’ve ever felt like a lowly fish, always struggling upstream, never making much progress, this is your chance to be the bear.

    This crisis is an audition for the next generation of leaders.

    You may already be in a leadership position.

    How is your audition going?

    You might believe you don’t have it in you to be a leader. If so, think again. Being elected to a public office or running a big company is not a prerequisite. You might be called to be the leader in your family right now, bringing a sense of calm or comfort, hope or joy. Perhaps you are called to be a leader in your neighborhood or apartment complex, or of the pared-down staff at work.

    We all experience fear, but cowering to it? That’s a choice. Owning the moment with courage and confidence is also a choice. Leaders are people who make hard choices and do the right thing.

    This is not about being somehow superhuman. It’s not about never feeling afraid, or exhausted, or overwhelmed. Feeling any of those feels right now doesn’t disqualify you from leadership. When I experience those emotions, I remember I am human and try to be kind to myself. My shortcomings are not proof that I suck; they are signs that I need to go back to my source of strength. For me, that comes from my morning time spent with a cup of coffee, my Bible, and my Heavenly Father. When my spiritual battery runs low, I know I need time away to recharge, in quiet, with Him. There, He reminds me of his great promises, and that I am not called to do His job, merely mine. Each new day, I am reminded, yet again, that dependency on Him is not a weakness; it is the goal.

    This painting is a call to own THIS moment. Not the next hundred. Leave tomorrow for tomorrow and don’t worry incessantly about the future.

    This crisis, this opportunity – this life – is astoundingly temporary.

    You are only guaranteed this moment.

    Will you own it…or just let it slip?