I grew up in the shadow of one of Hawaii’s most talented plein air and studio painters, William Twigg-Smith (1883-1950), whose art filled our home and the homes of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I have five-year-old memories of being in the luxuriously mysterious hideaway under his house where he framed and stored his art. He once stuck a nickel in my ear and pulled it out the other side. Never did figure out how he did that. One of my aunts and several of my cousins were, and are, accomplished artists as well — painters, multi-media craftsmen, filmmakers, photographers and sculptors. My artistic contribution as a young person was the oh-so-uninformed yearbook caricature rendering of each of my fellow students in my graduating high school class. Art — most prominently my grandfather’s oil paintings — was a huge part of my growing years.

Today, after a lifetime of literature and music, visual art has arisen inside me once again. I wrote Blue Skin of the Sea to memorialize the easygoing, stunningly beautiful life and times of my teenage years in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

I reveled in composing feel-good songs, then called sunshine pop, to release the love of life that has always existed within me. In oil, I paint to celebrate the multitude of emotional connections I find in the physical world around me. I guess one could say I have lived a life of art. Wow. How great is that?

When my turn comes to head on off to the next world, I plan to reach out and shake hands with God. “Thank you,” I will say. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Visit www.SalisburyPaintings.art to view & purchase.