Reinventing Beyond Painting

For most of my life, I have been an artist—a painter first and foremost. Many times I have felt like pinching myself, asking, “Can this be true . . . a successful artist?” Standing in nature painting beauty, while listening to birdsongs and feeling wind and sun, and then getting paid for the painting. What could be better? My hands have moved with color, form, and instinct, bringing visions to life on canvas.

 

Art has been a constant companion, shaping existence, giving purpose, and serving as conduit to the world. It has been my identity.

But now, at 72, I find myself at a crossroads, making a shift never anticipated.  

It is strange to acknowledge: my creative wellspring hasn’t dried up, but the way it flows is changing. Painting—once the beating heart of daily rhythm—feels quieter now, like a tide receding. In its place, something else is rising. Writing. Storytelling. The art of weaving my lived experiences, insights, and dreams into words that might reach others in a different way than my paintings ever could.  

I have been a writer all along. But it has been mostly in the background. Awards have been won, magazine articles published. Like my photography that has occasionally adorned a book cover, I have given creative energy to art other than painting.

Now to immerse myself in writing! To shape and share my thoughts more expansively. Friends have suggested for years that I combine my images with my writing, (See: Plenty To Write About). Yet, it is bittersweet. I am abandoning painting, at least for now, because writing must consume the hours. Not to choose this lightly; rather, it is the natural pull of a creative current, something I have always trusted.

Fortunately, it is not from scratch. For nearly two decades, I have been writing about my journey—art, travels, philosophies—on My Fairy-Tale Life, this blog that now holds almost 800 entries. These writings, layered with the richness of time and experience, form a vast reservoir to draw from and shift toward publishing on platforms like Substack and Medium. They hold the stories of a life lived with intensity, surrender, and wonder. In many ways, I have already been writing my next chapter—I just didn’t realize it.  

And while my paintbrush may rest for now, the visual world does not. With thousands of images—paintings, photographs, moments captured over a lifetime—I can now pair them with writing. In this way, my artistic spirit continues, even as the medium shifts. Perhaps I am not leaving painting behind, but rather allowing it to merge with language in a way that feels inevitable.

The journey has been anything but linear. From a year of "disappearing into the matrix" in 2008, traveling the world in THE DREAM and surrendering to the currents of life, and to the deeply personal journey of grief and love that shaped my book A Heart Traced in Sand, life has always been a dance between artistic expression and storytelling. Now, it seems, words are taking the lead.  

Who knows where this shift will lead. But then again, I never knew where painting would take me either. That is the beauty of creative life: it is never truly static, even when we believe we have found our singular path.  

Others have felt this shift in their own lives—the unexpected pivot, the realization that reinvention is not the territory of youth alone. Even at 72, there is room for sudden transformation. Perhaps the true art is in the letting go, the willingness to follow the currents when they change direction.  

So here I am, stepping into something new. Not abandoning the past, but expanding the horizon. If you have followed my work as a painter, I hope you will join me on this next phase of the journey—through words, through memory, through the ever-unfolding dream of life.  

Because at any age, and in any form, the art continues.  

Soon to come: My Substack and Medium websites where you can enjoy my literature.

Check out a new Stevenboone website: https://stevenboone.myportfolio.com/

Something Special

It is alarming that people don’t read books much anymore—especially young people. “A number of recent studies have demonstrated that fiction — particularly literary fiction — seems to boost the quality of empathy in the people who read it, their ability to see the world from another person's eyes. And good works of literature, particularly novels, can grant you direct access to another person's mind — whether it be the mind of the author, or of one of their imagined characters — in a way that few other works of art can.
So if we're reading less literature, it stands to reason that we may be becoming a less empathetic country as a result (research tends to bear this out). If changing reading habits are indeed making us less able to see things from other people's points of view, that could have drastic consequences across the board." See this great article from the Washington Post: The Long, Steady Decline of Literary Reading

I remember in first grade, learning how to read. We practiced making vowel and consonant sounds, and read from a primer about children; Dick and Jane and their dog Spot.

Later, when my grandmother, (my father’s mother) visited, I would sit on her lap in a big comfortable armchair and read aloud my favorite book, Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. She lovingly and patiently helped me pronounce and understand words as I spoke them.

In high school I read avidly. My favorite class was called World Literature. We read masterworks, and I particularly recall Franz Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis. It is about one man’s dreary existence turning into madness. (One day, Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect . . . )

Before finishing secondary school I had read many novels, including great Russian masterpieces War and Peace, and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, as well as the American collection of poems Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and more.

In adult life I have particularly enjoyed biographies, holy books, and treatise on psychology.

Shakespeare’s plays have had a profound effect on me.

I hope the libraries across our land stay vital in the face of video gaming and social media . . .
There is something special about going at one’s own pace with good literature in hand.

War and Peace

When I was a teenager, I engrossed myself in reading many of the world’s finest novels, and this formed a greater part of my education. During the summer of my eighteenth year, I read Leo Tolstoy’s epic story, War and Peace. One episode has lasted with me through the years. It is when one of the main characters, called Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, a dashing young lieutenant in the Tsar's army, is severely wounded in a battle with the French. Amid the carnage of the battlefield, Andrei has fallen with an almost fatal wound to his stomach and as he is bleeding in the grass, he gazes upward into the blue sky and sees lazy clouds drifting serenely above him. Suddenly he is struck how incongruous it all is. Amidst the mayhem and violence all around, and facing his own death, he nonetheless sees that the day is beautiful, and also notices the irony. And this is life on earth—beautiful and terrible both. The task is to always be mindful of the existence of each aspect, and remain positive always.