Personal Narratives & Essays

My most peaceful moments occur on Charleston's wintered beaches. The dimmer skies and emptier shores that welcome November to February are backdrops to watch an occasional surfer gracing the Atlantic. I remain in awe of this patient athlete, more so than any other, as they turn, paddle, and time a man-made object with Mother Nature, who is completely unpredictable. I once asked a friend who clocks most of his days off the shores of Folly the trick to consistency and growth as a surfer. He replied gently, "We don't boil the ocean."

 

 

 

 

 

There is no formula or blueprint for becoming an art dealer or for the discipline, creativity, and business style that one pursues.  It has been a long and, at times, treacherous journey, but one filled with thrill, adventure, and the unexpected. The art hunt has been has been my obsession, my relentless pursuit.

Passion and courage fuel the creative entrepreneur to move forward, innovate, and take risks that others wouldn’t dare. Passion and courage fuel us to believe in ourselves to do our best as our lives unfold. As Albert Camus wrote, “Life is a sum of all your choices. Large or small, our actions forge our futures, hopefully inspiring others along the way.”

Writers were my ticket out of the South; visual artists, my compass back home.  Raised on the wide open Mississippi Delta, with pages of expansive porches and miles of two-lane highways for meandering thoughts, I believed that words were a vehicle to see the world. As an English major, my Ole Miss education of bourbon-soaked conversations about the romantic lives of Ernest Hemingway’s Havana and Walker Percy’s New York spurred me to seek out a definition of myself that seemed somehow bigger than my current surroundings would allow.