Half-awake and walking out of my room to brew my coffee, I suddenly jumped at the sight of a frightening mask among the Halloween costumes flung over the back of the family room chairs. The kids, who attended a schoolhouse political party last night, need to tidy up a scrap in one case they awaken. I think I jumped into the next room.

Days are getting shorter, mornings are dark longer, and it's pitch black exterior. The stars are withal visible every bit I quietly make my way to the porch, trying non to awaken my wife in the room side by side door. The aroma of java is filling my lungs as the glow on the horizon begins, and it soon brightens the trees with an orangish calorie-free as morning officially arrives.

Signs of Halloween

Well-baked air, and the scent of fall — I'm in the mood for some fresh apple cider. I've already started dipping into the Halloween processed (yum!). And concluding Sunday we fabricated our way out to a local farm that has lots of Halloween activities — face up painting, pumpkin etching, corn maze, and and so on. It'south funny, the kids are teens and like to act grown up, yet they nevertheless honey going there.

Football game in Texas. Amen!

Information technology'southward football game atmospheric condition. Football game in Texas is virtually a religion, and since our triplets are in the marching band, nosotros've been spending our Friday nights at the games to support our kids and their school. Though I've never been sports-minded, I take to acknowledge I'g catching the disease. We're pretty energized considering our team is going to the playoffs, and on the way we beat a team no one has beaten in 11 years. Yay, team!

Our stadium was used in the filming of the TV show Friday Night Lights. It'south the commencement loftier school stadium I've seen with a jumbotron. I have to admit, information technology'due south pretty cool, but a lot different from the rickety, rotting wooden bleachers at Homestead High Schoolhouse in Indiana, where I graduated.

Happy at Home

I'm grateful to be here. Though I beloved my travels and my responsibilities have taken me to some very interesting places lately, every bit Dorothy said when she clicked her carmine slippers, at that place actually is no place similar domicile. Yet soon, I'll head out for a marketing class I'm taking in Orlando because I want to go along my ax sharpened.

In November I've got our new Figurative Art Convention & Expo (Confront) in Miami, which I'grand really excited about. My two passions are plein air painting and effigy/portrait painting. We've managed to put people together on stage who are unlikely to ever exist together again.

Exciting and New

After the Miami Confront event I head straight to our Radio Forecast conference at the Harvard Club in New York, which is put on by my radio mag (which is jubilant 25 years at the outcome). Then I'm off to the world famous Salmagundi Lodge for an event celebrating the 100th anniversary of its 5th Artery location.

That ends my travel for the yr. Then I get to stay home with the kids for a week while mama travels to a conference. I'm sure information technology will be bubblegum, pizza, and cupcakes every night! (I know she reads this, and she's always concerned virtually how I feed the kids.) (Smile.)

The year will wrap up with a couple more video shoots in our studios here in Austin. Then I go to stabilize for the balance of the year earlier the insane travel begins again.

Sometimes when I accept a lot of events back to back, I don't take fourth dimension to stop and call up nigh them until things settle down. I'm still processing the annual Radio Show convention, plus an event I held at the Wizard Academy, then the Fine Art Connoisseur art tour to Russia, my time painting in Russia, and my Autumn Color Week artists' retreat in Maine, which all came one right later on the other. Thank goodness for my iPhone camera and then I can think where I was last week!

Eavesdropping

Recently at Fall Colour Week I was painting next to Barbara Tapp, an amazing watercolor painter from Berkeley, California (where our kids were born). While we were standing in that location, she struck up a conversation with a couple visiting the area, heard well-nigh how the human had grown up nearby, had been gone for most of his life, and finally came back for a visit. The place, Schoodic Point, was just as he had remembered it.

I'm listening to the conversation when Barbara says to the couple, "My painting volition be washed in well-nigh half an 60 minutes. If you'll come up back then, I'd like to requite it to y'all. Would you like to have it?"

The couple was securely touched. "You would do that for united states?" Barbara explained that because they had such a deep connectedness with the expanse, the painting would be a prissy reminder of their old home, and information technology would exist a pleasance to requite information technology away.

She finished the painting, signed it, put it in a dainty matte, and gave it to them when they returned. Though they offered to pay her for information technology, she insisted that it would be her souvenir to them and that their joy was payment enough.

The Story of Giveaways

Afterwards that evening, during announcements, I asked Barbara to come up and tell the story, and I learned that her goal is to assistance the world by giving 1 painting abroad each mean solar day. She has already given away dozens and had stories of others during Autumn Color Week in Maine.

Each story was touching.

Well, the next twenty-four hours, this trend had caught on. Rick Wilson and I painted, with permission, on a farm with an amazing view, and the owner was very engaged with what nosotros were doing. Simply she mentioned that people oftentimes stop, walk on her holding without her permission to take pictures, and some set up up and paint without permission. She was thrilled that we had asked. And then Rick said, "When this painting is finished, I'd similar you to have information technology and so you know not all artists are going to walk on to your property without permission." She was then excited that I concluded upwards giving her my painting, too.

Though neither of us liked the thought of giving abroad a painting we wanted to continue, nosotros both felt very special most making an onetime woman'southward mean solar day. We both went dorsum a few days later to do some other painting from the aforementioned spot, and she already had Rick's painting framed and proudly took us in to show it hanging in her house (mine was nevertheless wet).

Others in the group too brought in stories well-nigh giving away paintings. Everyone felt great virtually their generosity.

Hmm. Peradventure Nosotros Tin Apply This to Our Advantage…

The marketing guy in me suggested a couple of lines to use when giving a painting away, and so that value is established. I suggested ane way to practise it is to say, "I'd like you to take this. I normally sell them for $2,500 in my gallery. I want you to have information technology because I believe every home should have original artwork, and because (your reason here)." Then you reinforce that all paintings are not free or inexpensive, and that original artwork is a expert thing.

Before we knew it, anybody was giving abroad paintings and had stories about special connections with people. Barbara reports that she hears from most people she'southward given paintings, and she's enriched her life with new friends, visits from people she has met, and a feeling that she is doing something special to help others through her fine art.

Barbara Tapp may have started a trend.

A Spirit of Generosity

What if we all tried this? What if we all lived with a spirit of generosity? What bear on would we take on the world? And how would it affect people getting excited about owning more original art?

Though a giveaway doesn't have to exist every day, what if when yous're out, y'all exercise a small piece, knowing that you may meet someone who needs to have their solar day lifted, or to have a special memory?

Everything in life cannot exist most selling. If you do artwork, photography, something else … why not attempt it?

My dad, an achieved photographer, takes a large matted photo with him to every dinner political party, every doctor visit, every special event. Information technology enriches his experience with others and makes them experience special.

Giving Creates Gifts to Yourself

Though some will be critical and think giving things away will injure their sales, nothing could be further from the truth. Giving ever results in other benefits more valuable than a sale. Barbara reports some recipients have really gone to her website to buy something, though that is non her intent.

Is Generosity in Your Future?

What can you do to alive generously today? Information technology may not be about a painting, or even a physical souvenir at all. Information technology may be about listening or helping or just reaching out to someone who needs an ear.

One generous person I got to know on our outset Cuba trip is artist Nancie King Mertz, who stayed in the World Famous Artists' Cabin this week at our house to film a couple of astonishing pastel art instruction videos. Nosotros were thrilled to become to know her better and experience her generosity.

Information technology's my wish that generosity will impact your day today. And be overly generous with the candy this Halloween 🙂