Brian Smart

My love of creating art began at a very early age.  My parents would find me with stacks of papers and crayons trying to keep up with Bob Ross on television.  By the age of seven, I was given the blessing of private art instruction.  Over the next five years I would learn the skills necessary to channel my creativity and raw talent.  By the end of my instruction I, like most teenagers, was interested in a million things at once.  Art was put on the back-burner until I was seventeen.  I earned a scholarship for school with art but  became unfocused and quit after three semesters.  From then on, I painted from time to time while working in restaurants for three years, but then I focused on the business world and while working in the corporate realm I stopped all artistic output for five years.  At the age of 28 I took a week of vacation to relocate. A spark occurred while I was storing away my old work.  I wanted to create again.  But not in the same manner.  I wanted to see how satisfied I could become doing what I remembered loving so effortlessly.  I also didn't want to settle for creativity I already possessed, but wanted to push my skills farther than I had ever dreamed of trying.  This is where my love of painting was reborn.