Giving Permission

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Last weekend we traveled to New York, to say a final goodbye to a very important person in our lives—artist, designer, builder, author, personal mentor and friend to both of us, our brother-in-law, David Stiles. The celebration of his life took place at his summer house, an old barn he had moved over 50 years ago to a piece of land near the ocean on Long Island, and which he and his wife had slowly, by hand, made extraordinary and magical. All the guests there had stories of how their lives had been positively affected by knowing him and his family. We understood. It also happened to us.

This event reminded us of our own debts of gratitude to them. A very long time ago, when we were very young, we wanted to make a big change in the course of our lives as artists. We decided to expand our opportunities by leaving our cozy lives in the Midwest and moving to New York where opportunities in art were more plentiful. This was a big, scary and risky proposition. We figured we could fail eas…