Why I chose the hard road...

People often assume I paint faces because I enjoy painting people.

The truth is a little more complicated.

I've spent most of my life trying to understand why people become who they become.

Painting simply became another way of asking the question.

When I was young, drawing occupied an unreasonable amount of my attention.

I drew on paper.

I drew on school assignments.

Occasionally, I drew on things that weren't intended to be drawn on.

Much to my parents' frustration.

Looking back, I think I was fortunate.

Not because I was especially talented.

Because somewhere along the way, I was given permission.

Permission is an interesting thing.

Most of us think our lives are shaped by talent, intelligence, discipline, or opportunity.

I suspect they're shaped just as much by what we believe we're allowed to pursue.

Children raised around musicians often imagine becoming musicians.

Children raised around entrepreneurs often imagine starting businesses.

Not because success is guaranteed.

Because possibility feels familiar.

For reasons I still don't fully understand, drawing felt familiar to me.

It felt available.

So I kept doing it.

And as anyone who spends enough time with a craft eventually discovers, repetition has a strange way of revealing weaknesses.

Mine were obvious.

• Faces

• Hands

• Feet

The very things I now find most fascinating.

While studying art in college, I found a small book of Michelangelo's drawings in the library.

What struck me wasn't the quality of the drawings.

It was the quantity. Page after page of studies.

• Hands

• Faces

• Bodies

• Attempts

• Adjustments

• Observations

It was the first time I fully understood that mastery isn't a gift.

It's attention.

So I spent months copying those drawings whenever I could.

Not because I wanted to become Michelangelo.

Because I wanted to understand what he understood.

Years later, I find it amusing that the things I once struggled with became the things I love most.

Particularly faces.

A face can reveal contradiction better than words ever could.

Strength and uncertainty.

Confidence and grief.

Longing and restraint.

Sometimes all at once.

The longer I paint, the less interested I become in likeness.

And the more interested I become in recognition.

Not whether a face looks real.

But whether it feels true.

Perhaps that's why I continue to paint people.

Not because they are difficult.

But because they remain mysterious.

Every face contains a story.

Every expression reveals a tension.

Every person is becoming someone.

And I've never quite lost my fascination with trying to understand who.