When your art fails, it is usually for the same reason? It definitely is in my case. I overdo, over work, subjects. I’ve written in my journal a number of times over the years: “What is the simplest way, the fewest brush strokes, the least pigment, you can use to express your idea? The image in your imagination?”

I have successfully painted a few of those. Perhaps a hundred or so out of the thousands of attempts. Bobcat Youth, above, is one example.

My paintings fail for other reasons too. Most of my attempts fail for one reason or another. And most of those failures were, at some point in their evolution, interesting, worthwhile images.

When I look at my life in general – both my business and personal life – the common cause of setbacks and misfortune has been trying too hard, with too much intensity. Particularly when things start to go wrong. When things start to go wrong, my impulse is to try harder rather than step back, relax, think and gain perspective.

A friend once said to me, “People don’t join health food co-op boards because they are good at cooperation. They join because they need to learn cooperation.”

Similarly, I notice intense, complicated people are attracted to simplicity, to minimalism. That was definitely true of Steve Jobs. It was true of Gandhi. It is true, I think, of improvisational pianist Keith Jarrett, who wrote in one of his album notes something I’ve often quoted,

The more experience a person has, the more simplicity is profound.

I offer that preamble to explain my increasing attraction to simplicity in art. To that end I’ve been studying the work of Helen Durant. Like me, she’s produced a highly diverse body of work. Much of it isn’t particularly minimalist, but her rough watercolor sketches have totally captivated my imagination. Here are some examples: