​Have you ever considered the idea of taking time to listen as being a gift?

If I could give you one gift this month it would be 'Time to Listen'. To your family. Your friends. The things around you. Nature. God. Yourself.

As I have been thinking about 'Time to Listen', the theme I have chosen for this month's 'Gift of Time', several experiences have come to mind.

​About 6 months ago I was really struggling as a parent. I felt like every day was unbearably hard and I couldn’t quite figure out why. Yes, I have two young kids but I know plenty of people with more kids than me that seemed to be handling things just fine.

As I was going through this time I also kept asking myself why do I keep doing this art stuff? What am I trying to accomplish with it? Am I helping anyone? Does it matter?

If I could give you a gift for February it would be 'Time to Spend With Loved Ones'.

​I've never really cared much for Valentine's Day so this month's theme might seem a little hypocritical. However, this has been on my mind over the past few months for two reasons.

Following the theme of 'Time to Rest' I have something for you that will help you find rest and help you in your art practice for this month.

​Art Books!

It's a gift to be able to relax. To pause, to listen to quiet, and to be still.

This year every month I will be sharing 'Gifts of Time'. To introduce a new year and the month of January I thought this gift of time was the most appropriate.

'Time to Rest'

​What is the best gift you could ever give or receive?

Recently, I introduced an idea on social media that I want to follow up with. I was thinking about Giving Tuesday and what I could do to contribute to this 'holiday'. As I thought about what I could do I had some ideas that I thought would be fun to try but I also realized that I didn't have the energy or time to do them. Life gets so busy so quickly!

Then I thought, how could I give people more time?

​This is a story from about 10 years ago.

I was on a photo shoot, wrapping up a two-day project with my team. We were in Elko, NV, photographing for a company that specialized in medical transportation via planes and helicopters. As we were packing up our gear and talking with the EMT's, we mentioned that we were going to head over to the Ruby mountain range for a bit just for fun on our way home. Then one of the pilots said, 'Well, do you want to fly over there?' Yes! Who would say no to that?

Why do you need custom art pieces for your home? Why do you want them? 

Maybe this isn't something you have thought about before. Or maybe it is. Either way, here are some great reasons that having an original work of art in your home can be valuable.

​In case you didn't already know, today I announced that I will now be selling prints! This has been a long time coming, I should have been doing it a LONG time ago...but the timing finally felt right, (meaning I really buckled down so I could figure out how to do this!). So thank you for your patience!

​Cyanotypes have been around for quite a long time, like 1842 long time. Sir John Herschel and Anna Atkins are the two pioneers of this process and if you want to learn more about them, the internet is full of information about how they got started.

But how can YOU get started?