A Generous Spirit
minimal lines and slashes. When I showed my portfolio to design studios, my work, which was warmer and more decorative, was labelled as ‘too American’ (whatever that meant) and ‘too traditional.’ In addition, the international fine arts scene, already seriously compromised, had by now become completely commercialized. As visionary and art critic Suzi Gablik wrote in the 1980s: ‘Trapped increasingly in a situation that seems both hopeless and inescapable, artists have become increasingly dependent on the ‘bureaucratic machinery’ which now organizes and administers the consumption of art in our culture.’2 For the first time I was confronted with a reality where doing good art wasn’t enough. It not only had to fit with the new times and culture I was living in, but above all the artist had to be a skilled entrepreneur to even get noticed, let alone earn a living. And so this book began as a search for meaning in my path as an artist. I was attempting to understand what I was experiencing all around me as the arts and artists were being devalued and marginalized. As society moved toward the commoditization of everything, I was questioning what artists could do, and what their purpose might be if they refused to produce art solely as a product. During the almost twenty years it took to write this book, many doors closed for me. I discovered that though I was passionate about much of my work, putting it in service to building and maintaining a career was unfulfilling. I didn’t realize it then, but in my heart there was a calling which was not being heeded. I gradually withdrew from art as a career, and began to question what art could mean not only for my individual life, but also for our collective lives. And over time, new doors opened. So this book is partly the chronicle of a personal journey; it starts with a successful life as a professional artist, and takes us through a search for meaning in an international spiritual community in Scotland, eventually landing as an outsider in the Dutch culture, establishing a career there, working as a healthcare artist in hospitals, and a gradual discovery of purpose beyond the selling of art and oneself. Some parts of the book were written during a period of transition between my old familiar way of life and a not yet discovered new one. It was a time full of doubt and isolation, yet I knew I wasn’t the only one experiencing this. I wanted to share how I navigated a limbo period that went on for years and what I learned from it. I wanted to write while I was in the middle of it to describe the terrain for others who might be experiencing a similar situation. Choosing to write from an uncertain, constantly morphing period of life goes against the current formula of ‘how I succeeded despite everything’ 16
