Happy New Year 2026

Dear Friends and Family

I wish you a Happy Healthy and Prosperous New Year. Would love to hear from you in the new year 😉. Click Contact on the Menu option above and hit Submit and I will get your message 🤗

Rereading the post that I had written sitting outside a NJ fitness center parking lot waiting for my late night swim turn. I didn't know that a few days later I would completely demolished (unhurt) my Toyota Highlander SUV for 15 years on NJ78 that I had raised my 2 teenagers in and then got to trade in for a coastal blue BMW convertible to cruise up and down the San Diego coast line. I also was apprehensive about leaving my beautiful trees after deciding to paint again once my children are all grown up after giving up to have them and dismantling my 10 years NYC DUMBO/Chelsea studio group. I didn't know either that Thầy had written a chapter in his book on the day that I was born and what Engagement Buddhism really means vs devotional and how it would align w sharing oneself globally. I had written a post re time to explain to my daughter that it is not usual for family to leave to the other side of the country but for a former refugee there is a huge big difference between moving willing vs unwillingly and to start anew again. I see painting very differently today and certainly swimming in the big ocean may have something to do with that because no one had told me about the waves when you do open water swimming out here. Intelligence Being was not in popular consciousness back then. Years ago before I knew anything about painting I saw a documentary about a museum director saying that he gave up painting because painting is no longer relevant in the 21st century. I feel differently since I am able to share and develop my paintings without depending on the traditional gallery-dealer-museum model for the works to be seen by both human eyes and non. I remember this wonderful last scene in Ang Lee's masterpiece Croucing tiger hidden dragon Sometime you just have to dive over the wall in order to fly but the difference now is that instead of the sword I can freeze the moment in time pictorially w a paint brush 😉