Welcome to a Life Inspired by Nature, Art & Beauty

I love Michael Workman's paintings. They pull me in, invite me to spend time with them. Slowly, they tell a story...one that I enjoy. With gentle colors, he describes a world where rugged mountains rise above soft green fields, places that bring me a sense of peace and well-being.

For an artist's searching gaze, he provides an utterly beautiful painting surface. Colors so subtle you can't quite name them. Layers. translucence. Simplicity. Poetry.

These are paintings I could live with.

When I teach about how to look at art, I talk about the many ways of seeing. You can look for excellent craft, quality materials, fine draftmanship, good values, strong composition. And the magical element of poetry in a painting that slips into your heart and memory and remains with you. This last element is part of the most important question...can you live with this piece of art...do you want to?

A painting can be exquisitely done, brilliant with color, fine composition...all the technique required of a good painting. But only a few pass the final test of bringing something into your life that you want to keep close. The artist often knows when this happens, and can open the gates for this level of art through intention, thoughtfulness, and painting with feeling. Art is a connection to something bigger than any single person. It is a link into a higher language of the heart that we can all understand.

As artists, when we approach our work with this intention, to walk a path of caring, inquiry, exploration, tenderness, we allow those qualities to flow straight through our hearts, hands, and paintbrushes onto the canvas...and into the heart and soul of those with eyes to see.

For more ramblings on well-loved art, peeks behind-the-scenes in the studio, and invitations to previews of new collections, plus first choice of new art, click to join the Inner Circle Collector's Club.