Refrigerator Magnets by Joshua

February 7, 2012 by Joshua | 2 Comments

Many of you know me as “staff photographer” for Bohemia, but how many of you know that 20 years before I seriously picked up a camera I picked up pencils and paint brushes?  That’s right folks, my first love and true God-given talent resides in my artistic expressions applied to paper and canvas.  As an only child of two hippie-cool parents, I not only had a lot of uninterrupted free time on my hands, but was always encouraged to create.  My obsession to create was fed, mostly, by my mother, who never shied away from telling me how good something I created was.  Our refrigerator became my own personal Art Gallery.  I still remember colored drawings I had labored over flapping wildly under their magnetic shackles as our window air conditioning unit cooled the humid coastal home I grew up in.  There is no better feeling than a parent’s approval and encouragement of their child’s accomplishments. And it was that motivation that propelled me to keep striving towards personal perfection.  I can tell you that even to this day my mother still ogles over everything that I do, canvas or photo.  She would argue that she is Bohemia’s biggest fan, and who could dare argue with an aging irish woman! And even though I don’t spend near as much time at the drawing table as I would like to, these days, it will always remain my first love when it comes to creating.  I often day dream of my retirement years, years I intend to spend with my toes dug firmly into the Texas Gulf Coast sand, staring endlessly into the wild, blue expanse. Perhaps I’ll have my easel, paint brushes, pencils, tubes of paint, tubes of sunscreen, and one of those floppy, oversized hats, and I’ll spend my remaining years creating.  I hope I live to see these days come to fruition, good Lord willing.  And when I build my own Art Gallery, to display my works and the works of others, I will have it built to look just like a giant Frigidaire.

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