Keyword: landscape

  • Looking for Orcas

    “Looking for Orcas” by Jason Kotecki. 30 x 24. Oil on canvas.
    Original is SOLD 🔴 Shop this art!

    I’ve heard that God always answers prayers. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes, he says yes in ways that seem like a no.

    During a family vacation in the Pacific Northwest, one of the things I wanted to see was an orca.

    We heard stories of a mama and her baby being spotted in Puget Sound. We kept our eyes peeled on the ferry ride to Victoria. Our vacation home was on a bay on the Olympic Peninsula, and every wave in the distance seemed like it could be a killer whale in the process of surfacing.

    We never saw one. We could have booked a sightseeing tour, but time and weather, and the ages of our kids conspired against us. Maybe next time.

    As I have reflected on this minor disappointment, and through the act of creating this painting, something occurred to me. God knew I wanted to see an orca, but because he knows me so deeply, he also knew why I wanted to see one, before even I did.

    I had to stop and ask myself, Why did I want to see an orca in the wild?

    I wanted to experience God’s creation in a powerful way.

    I wanted to see something I’d never seen before.

    I wanted to have a remarkable experience with my children.

    I wanted a neat encounter with an animal.

    As it turns out, I did all of those things, and I never saw one orca.

    I marveled at the breathtaking vistas of Hurricane Ridge.

    Our vacation home was on a beach filled with thousands of crabs. Never saw anything like that before.

    Between our mountain hike, the ferry rides, the view from the Space Needle, and a spin on Seattle’s Great Wheel, there was no shortage of remarkable experiences to be shared with my kids.

    And feeding some harbor seals with a $2 bag of fish heads was a pretty neat animal encounter.

    I didn’t get what I asked for. But somehow, I still got what I wanted.

    Time and time again in my life, I didn’t get things that I asked for. 

    I thought I wanted to marry a brunette. God knew what I really wanted was a beautiful, smart, and thoughtful wife who believed in me. He also made her blonde.

    I wanted to use my art to make a living and shine light and goodness in the world. I asked for it in the form of being a professional syndicated cartoonist. That never materialized. But here I am, using my art to make a living and shine light and goodness in the world in a way that I never could have imagined, but I am excited to say is even better.

    Sometimes we miss the answer to our prayers because we’re looking in the wrong place.

  • Wind In Our Sails

    “Wind In Our Sails” by Jason Kotecki. 20 x 20. Oil on canvas.
    Original is SOLD 🔴 Shop this art!

    This painting was inspired by a family vacation to Mexico. One thing that was abundantly clear in the week we were there is that the Mexican people love their color. When you’re accustomed to everything being Pottery Barn beige and gray, it really stands out. 

    I wanted to incorporate that vibrant, whimsical color, along with one of the culture’s great traditions, Dia de Muertos, or Day of the Dead. I think it is a beautiful way to look at the afterlife and the ancestors who went before us. I appreciated the idea of seeing death as a part of the life process, rather than an end in itself.

    I also liked the focus on how much we owe to the people who came before us. In American culture, the independent spirit of the individual is celebrated. That’s fine, as far as it goes. Except that there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. No one becomes successful by themselves. Yes, your unique talents and a fiery self-determination are key ingredients for success. 

    But life is a group effort. 

    I was thinking about the people in my own life who have passed away. Not just family members, but teachers and coaches who served as mentors, too. Every one of them taught me something that I carry with me to this day. 

    My Grandma K. made me feel like I was special, just as I was.

    My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Smith, encouraged me to take my artistic talent seriously.

    My Little League coach, Mr. Dawson, helped me believe that I was a winner.

    When I was an uncertain teenager, Deacon Vince saw me as a grown-up with valuable contributions to make.

    Each of us is like that tiny sailboat. At times, it can feel like we are drifting, alone, on a vast and overwhelming sea. 

    But we are not alone. 

    We have the wisdom, given to us by the people in our lives who have gone before us, charting our course. They have touched our lives, and their examples live on, showing us the way.

    And their words live on as the wind in our sails, guiding us into a bright and colorful future.

  • The Captain

    “The Captain” by Jason Kotecki. 20 x 20. Oil on canvas.
    Original is SOLD 🔴 Shop this art!

    I present to you a painting I made of a pirate ship sailing in an ocean of milk amidst floating Cap’n Crunch cereal.

    I thought long and hard about conjuring up some deep meaning on this one. Something that would make you shake your head in amazement and say, “Wow. He is a truly brilliant artist and thinker.”

    But you know what? There isn’t any deep meaning. The truth is, I was thinking about Cap’n Crunch cereal, which I love, and thought about a tiny pirate ship sailing in a bowl of it, which would be neat. But then I thought, what if the ship was normal-sized and the whole ocean was milk and it had giant pieces of Cap’n Crunch floating in it? That would be weirder, and possibly neater. 

    So that’s what I did: gave myself over to pure whimsy.

    As we get older, Adultitis takes over and kills our whimsy. We grow increasingly skilled in the art of taking ourselves too seriously. And all that seems to bring us is anxiety, stress, and a life totally devoid of fun. 

    We’ve mastered the ability to make the trivial monumental. We fret about all sorts of things, from gas prices and elections to how we’re going to kill those weeds in the yard and what we should wear to next Friday’s function.

    Becoming more responsible is one thing. But losing our sense of whimsy and taking ourselves too seriously is another. 

    I have long admired people like Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl because they created magical characters and worlds that are so rich with whimsy. Their art depicts preposterous, physics-bending, imagination-stirring images and scenarios that exhibit a ridiculousness that is wholly original and entertaining. Meanwhile, within the context of their art, all of it comes across as completely normal. How did they do that? 

    It can be hard for me to give myself over to this pure, unadulterated nonsense, which I consider to be the unfiltered essence of the spirit of childhood. As someone who often errs on the side of practicality and reason, I have always wished I could be more like Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl. After discovering Adultitis and its evil tricks early in my adult life, I have spent my life trying to get back to that level of creative abandon. Back to normal.

    And yet here I am, having created a painting that exists at least within the same universe as those two greats, frustrated because I cannot come up with words to explain the meaning of this painting. 

    Because there isn’t one. 

    And thankfully, I think to myself, “Well, finally. Some progress.”

    It took a while to become an expert at taking yourself seriously; it will take a while to get back to normal. Give yourself permission to start.