A few years ago I was out driving through the country about where Spear Hill Rd meets the Cushing Rd in the South Warren/North Cushing area. As I came to the intersection, I saw the hull of a lobster boat sitting in a stand of pine trees. Just a hull, no cabin. It immediately struck me as a scene that I might like to paint, being so out of the ordinary. Have you ever seen a lobster boat in a forest? A local lobsterman (fisherman) had made a clearing near his house so that he could work on his boat. I drove by it several times and kept thinking that it would make a great painting. It sat there for at least a couple of years. Well, I never did get around to painting it and even later decided that it looked too much like something Andrew Wyeth himself might do.

(I do believe now that the reason I "never did get around to it" was because of this misplaced "respect".)

As I've mentioned on my web site, my studio is a short distance from the Farnsworth Museum. So...seeing original Wyeths is easy. Anyway, a year or so after that, I saw a new painting...there was my boat in the forest! Only, it was signed... "Andrew Wyeth."

If my "respect" for Wyeth hadn't gotten in the way in this case, a little "derring-do" would have seen me with a nice painting that would have been all my own even if Wyeth did follow me! "Go with your gut instinct!" has become my motto ever since.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: We post this message by guest author Brian Kliewer to emphasize the point that an artist should always follow his/her muse. If you're inspired, Do It!

To learn more about Brian Kliewer, visit his web site at:
http://www.kliewerstudio.com/