Beyond the Corporate Ladder I spent almost seven years dressed primarily in suits, making my art on one side of the lake and my living on the other. I had periods in which I made so much money that I rented a house in the Caribbean for the winter where my wife and son stayed and I visited on weekends. Here you see two of my favorite shots of my wife from that period, one with her face painted for a performance with the National Ballet of the Dominican Republic and the other on a bike ride. |
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I was considering giving-up being an artist when markets crashed. About a year after the crash, I left investment banking as poor as I'd entered. I did some odd jobs for friends including managing a short-lived senatorial campaign and remodeling a farm. As my 39th birthday approached, I realized I had never put all the talents that I had developed to support other peoples' visions, behind my own.
I loved sculpting but had never really concentrated my skills on the art. In 1992, I decided I'd rather fail completely trying to do what I wanted than limp along doing something about which I didn't feel strongly.
 Photo: Doug Beasley |
I gave myself a year to do nothing but sculpt. My previous experience
in business gave me the patience I had previously lacked to undertake the
long processes necessary to make bronzes. My efforts were inspired by my
love of what I was doing. Exactly one year later, at a cocktail party given
for me by a friend with a house large enough to entertain, I showed about
three dozen of the bronzes I'd made. In two hours, I sold more than half.
I recuped my investment and set new goals for the coming year. Each year
since then I have set new goals for myself. In this photograph, from July
1997, you see me applying the patina to a bronze. |