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Looking back this past year has brought many positive changes and many artistic changes. I`ve learned so much and I loved this experience. My personal growth resonated with my surroundings and it was quite interesting to watch their reactions. I could witness everything from rejection to enthusiasm. This offers deep insight into the human soul. My own as well as into the others. The lesson I’ve learned from another perspective this year: Never quit! Take a break but never quit.

Focus on your own artistic growth and leave behind those people who aren’t willing to understand your development. They just suck away your energy and you don’t want to spend time with them.

It shows me time and again how important it is to be open to all people and situations and to stop judging everything straight away.

Just recently somebody asked me what my life purpose is. Spontaneously I answered to help people find their authentic artistic voice. No hiding behind somebody’s else opinion. Just being yourself. With every right to follow their own artistic growth.

Two interviews show my point of view. The British actress Helen Mirren said:

»Don’t allow the people to make rules for you. Make your own rules. And basically there are no rules. And as I traveled through life I realized more and more that there are less and less rules actually. …People fall into habits so easily and that they imagine that the world is just going to fall apart if they break a habit. That is not the case. It’s a really good idea to break your own rules on a regular basis.«

Even more deeply impressed me Erik Weihenmayer the first blind person to climb the Mount Everest.

»I like to collect experiences, soak in as much as I can. When I am climbing the scariest part is when I am reaching out. I am not exactly sure of what I am going to find.I am hoping and praying and predicting of what I was going looking for. That fear to reaching out into the unknown paralyses people to the point they decide not to reach out at all. For me all the great things that had ever come to me had been had come to reaching out into the unknown. »

Never let other peoples opinion stop you of doing things. With my oil painting I reached out into the unknown and the rewards are coming back.

This past year has taught me to sharpen my focus and endure the times when it’s not going as I had hoped it would. You just need to paint crappy paintings in order to succeed.

It has brought so much joy and positive change. 2016 was a really good year.

2017 will be even better.

I am working right now on a new exhibition and this one focuses on the day time of dusk and dawn in my hometown Hamburg. So interesting and challenging motives. I just love it.

And I reserved my spot in a painting workshop with Scott Christensen next year. Oh, I am looking forward to learn so much.

Of course, I didn’t stop teaching the pastel workshop. There will be one  in 2018 in Croatia and it will be in English and German. That will be fun!

I am looking forward to my own artistic growth so much. I feel blessed and grateful that I can live the life of an artist in these times.

Last but not least thanks to all the people out there who have crossed my path this year. You’ve made it a very special one.