art for all

29. Rusty beans and dusty gold

May 17, 2021 Danny Gregory Season 2 Episode 29
art for all
29. Rusty beans and dusty gold
Show Notes Transcript

How to learn more, every day.



Welcome to art for all the sketchbook school podcast. I'm your host, Danny Gregory. I'm the author of a dozen or so books on art and creativity. And I'm a sketchbook artist. I'm also a life long learner. I'm forever looking for new ways to do things and new things to do. Are you? One evening, you go to a friend's house and she's rented a movie. She paid for it, but you get to watch it for free. You notice a best seller on the table and you ask if you can borrow it, your friend waves it away and tells you how disappointing it was. Instead she urges another book on you. Book that you'd never known about. And that book changes your life. You have coffee with a friend who offers to introduce you to a colleague with professional experience that dovetails perfectly with yours. You're on your phone, about to jaywalk. The bicyclist zooms past you and through a red light, almost getting clipped by a taxi, your heart spasms with adrenaline. As you step back onto the curb and swallow hard, you read a memoir of a man who went against the herd to start a business in an industry that others had long since abandoned. He struggles. He backslides, he struggled some more, but by using certain surprising skills, he reverses the trend and he creates a successful beloved business. His book is full of specific descriptions that you can use to pursue your own dream. You read a review on Amazon for a product that you've been considering for a while, the review points out three unusual criteria that you'd never considered, but which makes you act immediately, your mother-in-law smokes like a chimney at 60 she's dead of lung cancer. You used to have an occasional cigarette with your second martini, no hunger. You had a parent who withheld affection to the point of abuse. When you have your own children, you use his behavior as a yardstick, a warning of things, never to do. Distracted. You say something unthinking to your spouse who gasps aloud. You look up suddenly aware of what you've said, and he grows shocked at your own insensitivity. Your grandfather survived the great depression for the next 60 years. He counted every penny. And then died alone in a shabby house. It's basement, full of rusting, canned goods, and 30 pounds of gold bullion. Every day offers you a lesson that you may. Or may not notice. What did you learn today and what did you teach someone else? Thanks for joining me today. I'll create something new for you again next week, till then Danny Gregory. And this is art for all.