After exchanging the usual pleasantries that flow between ex-pat Aussies I asked him how he'd been getting on and he told me of a wonderful development in his artistic life and career.
Josh leaves Los Angeles periodically to act in theatrical productions, both in New York and elsewhere from what I could glean. Sometime last year, sitting in his temporary theatre housing, Josh decided to get a canvas and paint. This isn't uncommon; once rehearsal for a show is over and the production is playing every evening actors who are away from home usually find themselves with little to do during the day and it's at this point that they usually turn to creative outlets beyond acting: music, writing or in this case, painting.
That was around a year ago. After finishing several canvases, Josh started to post them online and get them out into the world and the response was immediate. Galleries started to show interest and before long Josh's work had been seen in exhibitions. Then, recently, he told me he'd been contacted by a gallery in Vera Cruz, Mexico. An area known for high-end art buyers, Josh's work would take up the entire top floor for a month, gaining exposure to lovers of the kind of vibrant work that Josh was creating. They were asking for 30 paintings; Josh had, up until that point, painted 14.
So now it's down to work. It seems that his success as a painter may be about to shoot upward.
But this post today isn't about commercial, financial or even artistic success in the way it's usually defined.
It's about following your impulses wherever they may lead. Listening to that soft voice, whispering to us when we're receptive enough to hear it, that suggests a new direction. It's about rejecting internal and external notions around who we are, what we're capable of and what's possible in the world.Hearing Josh's good news and seeing his expansion into an area that up until a year ago had been foreign to him tells me that personal, artistic and financial/commercial expansion can occur in a multitude of ways if we have the courage, joy and open mind to pursue our desires - however illogical, surprising or 'unrealistic' they may seem.
After all, we live in a fluid, dynamic society where a single voice is now able to make itself heard in ways unimaginable before. Just a click and one can see the works of artists all over the world not to mention work from people in every other field of endeavour.
Stories like Josh's remind us that any thoughts of too late, not good enough or not possible are just resistance and stagnation. It's our job to blow them up through taking action and feeling joy for what we can do now and what we may do tomorrow.
I've left a link to Josh's website below. I hope you dig his work. Others clearly do.
But what's more important is that he did it.
www.joshadamsongallery.com
Picture: "Another Workday in the City", 30" x 40" acrylic on canvas.
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