If life is a journey, then, I'm blessed to have already gone on several trips.

 

Born and raised in the Midwest, I've come to establish roots on the East Coast.  I have travelled throughout many parts of our great country and Western Europe.  In doing so, I've met many interesting folks from all walks of life and ethnic groups.  I've been a practicing attorney, mainstream journalist, and big law publicist. Each adventure has been enlightening in its own way.  As Frank once said, "I've been a puppet, a pauper, a poet, a pirate, a pawn and a king..." Or, something like that.  It's those experiences I'd now like to share with you in the novels, art, and poetry you'll find on these pages.

 

My interest in pursuing the meaning of life, like most of us, began at a young age and came down pretty much to "doing everything as if doing it for God."  I knew by my college days that If history teaches us anything, it's that good, bad, and all things in between will at least seem to happen to all of us, sooner or later.

 

But, it wasn't until taking an independent studies course with a willing and inspiring professor that I really began to delve deeply into the nature of man's ability to know right from wrong and the extent to which he controls his own destiny, if at all. The conclusion?  Well, simply put, if being made into God's own image means anything, our "Free Will" is the smoking gun.  Maybe THAT'S the "bridge" between Fate and our Maker.

 

I suspect the eternal quest for THE answer may not end until the end.

 

In the meantime, here's a little poem I once jotted down after reading Mr. Bach's inspiring story titled Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and am still pondering from time to time:

 

I am the lion, I am the beast, I am the god who's at peace.

I am the gull, I am the ghost,  I am a man but, then, I am most.

 

There was an autumn, when fear was God, when all of God's creatures were seed.

Then, came the rains, which watered the earth, and the life turned to song, they were freed.

 

Now Jon was a leaf who fell to the ground, and in his voyage he could see.

How right it is to leave that tree, to seek his own roots and be freed.

 

I am the good, I am the sea, I am the great, I am the tallest tree.

 

Aren't we all?

​

“Imaginist” art of Davd Soul – Impressionistic light in an imagined moment

 

Imagine an impressionable grammar school student of 9 on a field trip and first visit to the Art Institute of Chicago. What visual wonders abounded there! The Dutch Masters were clearly masterful … yet … those French Impressionists were inspiring. 

 

Hundreds of visits to this grand artistic landmark since was a master’s degree of sorts to this otherwise untrained eye. And, decades later it led to an epiphany as the self-educated plebe stared at Renior’s “Two Sisters on the Terrace” painting for maybe the thousandth hour: Auguste’s use of vibrant & multiple shades of red, blues & greens captured a light-filled moment & literally made the figures “pop” out of the canvass; they seemingly floated before me as if three-dimensional characters. Also stunning was the realization that relatively simple “brush strokes” had made it all possible. How could I have not seen it earlier? Yet, it was exhilarating to think I could now almost transport myself to that moment in which the artist not only gave us a moment in time that he had witnessed, but the many thoughts that must have been going through his own mind as he painted.

 

Hence, was the laying of the seeds that led to my own humble approach to Impressionistic art and the creation of works, some of which you see posted on my website I call “Imaginist Art” or “Impressionistic light in an imagined moment.”  It’s certainly unlikely the contribution is entirely unique … but, it’s a sincere expression of my admiration of what the pioneers dared bring the world in the late 19th Century. The short of it is, when an artist tries to capture a “moment” in time, it’s not necessarily just a snap shot of what he or she sees & hears, but also of the internal experiences, feelings & imagery simultaneously influencing if not dominating what winds up on the canvass.

 

It was not until the early 1990s that I had enough confidence to begin using pastels to capture what I thought I saw and imagined. I took several years to graduate to acrylics. This artistic journey continues, always waiting for the inspired Word to jump start the next project; it’s the same inspiration I wait for and inevitably get when writing. It is God who is the Light of the world after all.

 

-- Davd Soul