The Process Is the Point: What Nearly Four Decades of Making Art Has Taught Me About Purpose

I have been an artist for nearly four decades. I have painted on canvases and hundred-foot walls. I have made drums from burning tree trunks at midnight and beyond. That relationship with fire moved me into welding and sculpture with fire and steel. I have collected Venetian trade beads that are five centuries old and held them up to my ear, listening. I have facilitated community murals with hundreds of people who had never held a paintbrush. I have worked with heart and brain surgeons, guiding them through a creative experience that created more connection to their colleagues and no doubt to themselves.

And the one thing all of it has taught me, the thing I come back to again and again is this: the process is the point.

Not the finished piece. Not the sale. Not the review. The process.

In Sacred Pulse I write:

"Artists' copious purpose lies within the fertile soil of the process. Sometimes — with dedication in our hearts and prayers in our breath — we pause in that garden, wait there, and seek forgiveness or love."

This is not a comfortable truth when you are trying to make a living. I know what it is to live paycheck to paycheck as a contractor, feast or famine. Scarcity is a mindset I have completely done away with, and it works. Opportunities are attracted to me, and I take on what aligns with my values. Planet and people first. I know what it is to smile when someone says, "Oh, you are so lucky that you get to make art," and say nothing, because there is no explaining this career choice to someone who hasn't felt the pull of it. As I write in the book:

"A blessing and a curse, albeit. Holding both sides of creativity in balance on a good day. A deep understanding that, as professional artists, we do not choose art, art chooses us."

What kept me going through the lean years, the self-doubt, the moments of wanting to quit and take a predictable, normal job was returning to the process itself. Not the outcome. The act of making. The smell of oil paint. The rhythm of the drum. The way a bead feels between your thumb and forefinger. Gently nursing the wound from the molten steel, as I welded above my head to crate large scale- sculptures. Despite all the safety gear. Ever-learning. These things are not rewards for doing the work. They are the work.

I also write in Sacred Pulse about what purpose-led creating actually looks like in practice:

"I create whatever spirit guides me to create: not art that matches the couch, but art that changes perspectives from the inside out. Art that makes you feel alive, makes you cry, and connects you to or helps you experience life in a new way."

That sentence took me decades to be able to say without flinching. The confidence to make art that matters to you, not art that sells, not art that fits, not art that earns approval; is itself the work of a lifetime, and I am deeply grateful to have the responsibility.

And as I write near the close of one chapter: "purpose rises: to create fully, honor life, and leave a trace of beauty that would not exist otherwise."

That is enough. That has always been enough.

Sacred Pulse: A Journey Into Art & Shamanism is available [here].