Art. Fine.

"Transitory," by Terri Porta. I love this painting—I see something new every time I ponder it—and I deeply admire the artist.

Interestingly enough, it was a conversation at my job that got me to thinking about fine art, even though those words—"fine" and "art"—never came up when my colleagues and I were batting around the notion of work-life balance and what it really means to each of us.

I'm always doing this, by the way. I'm always rocketing off from one topic to another, with little connective tissue, as my mind stretches one thing into another. This elasticity largely serves me well—the entirety of my career as a fiction writer can pretty much be accredited to this tendency (or this tendency can be blamed, depending on your view of things)—but I sometimes end up in choppy waters when I blurt out where my head goes without giving the person I'm talking to some kind of road map.

So here, in the confines of this little blast of words, I'll try to reconstruct how one thing led to another. "Work-life balance," to me, is a moving target, subject to the tides of age, interests, location, current events, etc. When I was in my twenties and never turned myself off from my career, I thought I was supremely balanced. I worked, I slept, and I road-tripped in almost perfect proportions. (I also moved a lot, having not yet figured out that wherever you go, there you are.)

Thirty years down the line, I'm a different guy. I turn off work—my job, my writing, the many other things I do to make a buck—when it's time to step away. I'm not idle, though. I rarely watch TV. On evenings and weekends, I'm reading, or having lunch with friends, or exploring, or attending events. Sometimes, all of that.

This is where fine art comes in. I have, in all surprise to myself, become a collector of paintings. Not an investor; I'm not buying low and selling high. I'm buying and holding, forevermore. I'm dressing my walls with work that moves me emotionally, intellectually, and aesthetically. I'm learning everything I can about the creators of the works I buy—how they work, how they think, what moves them, why they answer the call.

I'm learning what I like and don't like, what speaks to me and what doesn't. I'm learning to articulate those things, lacking any sort of background in technique or criticism. I look for beautiful things. The definition of "beautiful"? That's all on me. I'm figuring it out as I go.

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An untitled piece by Marci Brockmann. The brooding swirl of color got me.

So here's the thing: When I was a younger man, paintings didn't interest me in the least. I'm not sure why, except that I was always in such a hurry to get to the next thing that I never stood in front of one long enough to let it sink into me.

Is it age, a moderating temperament, a need to stand in silence for a while, something that would have rattled me in those days when I equated frenetic activity with being alive? I'm not sure. What I do know is that it's a loud world getting louder, and so many of the people populating it are moving through their lives with their attentions divided, as if their brains are spread out over eight dozen browser tabs. I'm not above that. All too often, I'm right there with them.

Art is my shelter from that, a place I can slip into and let my thoughts settle. No pleasure these days is richer than the one that comes from standing in front of a painting and letting it work me over.

​I wasn't always in this place. But I'm here now. Balance has been redefined.

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A commissioned piece from Monte L. Hurlbert. It adorns the paperback of NORTHWARD DREAMS and my bedroom wall.

I also know this: Putting up art in the the place where I create has a real, if immeasurable, effect on my work. It opens the creative pores, if you will. I want to contribute to a world that, amid its many horrors and bafflements, also contains such beauty. It makes me want to be better at what I do, not for aggrandizement or fame or riches, but because I can think of no higher calling than to brighten the corners of dark places with art.

Not a bad way to find balance, eh?

A work by Corby Skinner. I love the vibrancy of the color, and the shapes mesmerize me. There's energy here.