Sunday ☕ : The Call Before Commitment

The water does something at this hour that defies explanation. Thousands of shifting diamonds blink across the surface as the Florida sun finds its angle. I’m squinting from the shore at silhouettes of palm trees and lounge chairs so perfectly arranged they look airbrushed into a brochure.

A dolphin surfaces 50 yards out, indifferent to my admiration, then disappears. And overhead, an osprey circles in that slow, focused way that tells you she’s not sightseeing. Then she stops.

She announces, then dives.

The osprey calls out before she commits. It’s not a warning to the fish; the fish can’t exactly reschedule. It’s an announcement: I’m here. I see you. Here I come. Then she folds into a javelin, hits the water with the kind of commitment that makes you wince, and rises with golden talons wrapped around something that didn’t get a vote in the matter.

She didn’t circle forever. She didn’t weigh the risks or consult anyone. She didn’t overthink it. She announced. She dove. She ate.

I’ve been thinking about that all morning.

What the Osprey Knows

Here is what the osprey is not doing: She is not explaining to her osprey friends that she’s “taking some time.” She’s not posting about it. She’s already circling again.

I say this not to shame anyone whose definition of a good Tuesday involves a golf cart and a satisfying nine holes. If the green fills you the way a fish fills an osprey, then play every course on the continent with my blessing. There is no right or wrong here.

But I have a suspicion that some of you are circling without committing. That you feel the pull but have slowed the wings a little because someone or something … a decade, a culture, a well-meaning doctor … suggested you’ve earned the lounge chair. That maybe this is the phase characterized by the gradual, graceful reduction of ambition. And maybe some mornings you’re not sure you agree.

Breaking What Works

Here’s what I know about myself: I try to be like the osprey. I have insane ideas, and so I announce them, to shame myself into getting them done. Without the announcement, there is no accountability. Without action … the dive … I’d keep circling with no consequence, no skin in the game, no reason to actually leave the air.

The announcement is the commitment. It’s not bragging; it’s burning the bridges behind me.

Most people keep their big ideas private, and that’s precisely why most big ideas die quietly, somewhere between the coffee cup and the calendar. You can circle a private idea forever. The moment you say it out loud, to someone who will remember, the dive becomes non-negotiable. Your reputation is now in the water ahead of you.

Breaking Old Habits

I didn’t build a company to produce the same widget for a thousand years. I love reinvention. Not reinvention out of crisis, but the deliberate, mildly reckless act of breaking something that isn’t broken, just to see what happens next. I like to do it personally and professionally.

The thrill isn’t in the outcome. The thrill is in the not-knowing. The moment before the dive, when anything is still possible. It’s a dopamine rush, and I’ve decided I’m not interested in giving it up just because I’m old enough to know better.

So my next stop: The Florence Academy of Art in Italy, five concentrated weeks of classical drawing and painting training, starting right after Easter, where excellence is the only acceptable standard and they will tell me with precise Italian politeness that my drawing is structurally incorrect, to erase and start over, and slow down this time.

I don’t need this to sell more paintings. I’m not building a curriculum around it. I’m doing it because the box exists and I want to know if I can check it. That’s the whole reason. And I just told you, so now I have to.

So I’ve been going to life drawing groups, practicing more than I normally would, trying to arrive less embarrassing than I currently am. That has limits, but I intend to reach them.

Business Gets the Same Treatment

And it’s not just the art. Back at my company, I’m launching new things — not out of pressure, not because the old things aren’t working, but because the best version of what I can offer my customers doesn’t exist yet, and I want to build it.

The excitement isn’t in knowing how it will go. It never is. It’s in the dive itself, the commitment before you know what you’ll come up with.

Every new thing I’ve built felt slightly insane and very scary in the early stages. I usually get resistance to every idea, rolling eyes, “Here we go again, another harebrained idea” from some of my advisors. That feeling, I’ve decided, is a good sign. Comfort is not a reliable compass. If everyone immediately agrees it’s a great idea, it’s probably not that great an idea.

It’s About the Hunt

Life, it turns out, isn’t about the fish you catch or accumulate, though those are nice perks. It’s about the hunt — the challenge, the unsettling electricity of knowing you’ve put yourself at risk, and announcing it so loudly that failure is no longer a quiet option.

The osprey doesn’t circle because she’s afraid of the water. She circles because she’s choosing her moment. But here’s the thing most people miss: At some point the circling stops being strategy and starts being avoidance. And the fish doesn’t wait.

You know which one you’re doing. We always do. Even though we tell ourselves stories about timing and finances, and convince ourselves that someday will come, most times there’s not another fish coming.

The osprey is already circling again. The water is genuinely spectacular. And somewhere overhead, something is about to dive.

Where will you dive?

What are you in need of circling?

P.S. The Soul of Plein Air Painting

When I return from Italy in the spring, I’ll be going straight to the Plein Air Convention, this year in the Ozarks near Branson, Missouri. The convention is the gathering place for the plein air movement worldwide.

If you’ve been before, I’m talking to you especially: “I’ve been” is not a reason to stop going, any more than eating a great meal once is a reason to skip dinner.

The Ozarks are staggeringly beautiful. Rolling hills, river valleys, a quality of light that drew Thomas Hart Benton — born in Neosho, Missouri, trained at the Art Institute of Chicago and Paris’ Académie Julian, and an inspiration to generations of painters since — to paint there.

Come because the best painting you’ll ever make hasn’t happened yet. Come because you haven’t given up on learning. Come because it’s not about the location, it’s about the experience and the people. Come because you, like the osprey, need to take a dive … a leap, because your soul needs it. Because there is never a good time, never enough money, never a secure economy, and because nothing lasts forever. Come before your seat is gone. In fact, 75 hotel rooms remain at our backup hotel, the one with a shuttle. pleinairconvention.com.

P.S. 2: Two Rare Travel Opportunities: Japan and China, Together or Separately

Everybody wants to see Japan. I took a painting group there two years ago, but we didn’t have another week to view all the incredible artwork, including the enormous collections of Impressionist paintings. There are more Impressionist paintings there than anywhere else in the world outside of Paris — Van Gogh, Monet, all the greats.

This year, our annual Fine Art Trip from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine will spend 10 days in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima. These trips are legendary for their behind-the-scenes access and special experiences. You can learn more at finearttrip.com/japan.

We’re bumping against the registration deadline this week; we have to confirm hotel numbers and allow time for visas. Don’t wait.

Two Trips, One International Flight

Unusually, we’ve scheduled a painters’ trip to China right after the collectors’ trip to Japan, because many painters join the collector trip and there’s no reason to fly to Asia twice. For those painters already on the Japan trip, we will spend four days painting in Japan, then head to China to begin our painting journey there.

After my trip to China last July, I fell in love with the scenery, the people, the food, and the spectacular culture. It’s incredibly paintable and very safe.

I’ve partnered with people I know and trust who have deep art connections in China, and who live and do business in China’s art world. They will take us to the most paintable locations, including access you would never get on your own. Two of China’s most spectacular plein air bases are on the itinerary: special hotels dedicated to plein air painting in breathtaking locations, created with government funding to encourage the practice of plein air and accessible to outsiders only through us on this one trip.

We stay in beautiful four-star hotels throughout. Fall in China is going to be outstanding, and you’ll be home in time for Thanksgiving. One of the great Chinese portrait artists, Denfong Li, will be on the trip with us, and we’ll be meeting top Chinese artists along the way. Learn more at pleinairtrip.com/china.

P.S. 3: My Summer Retreat Is 75% Sold Out

Every summer for about 16 years, I’ve hosted an artist retreat in the Adirondacks. I’ve been going there for 30 years now, and I still catch my breath on the drive in.

Let me try to explain what the Adirondacks actually are, because most people have no idea. The Adirondack Park is 6 million acres of protected wilderness, larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon combined.

Sit with that for a moment.

It would be one of the crown jewels of the American National Park system except that New York State got there first, locking it into protected “forever wild” status in the 1890s before the federal government thought to claim it. The result is the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States: 3,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, high peaks that disappear into clouds, and old growth forests so dense that they feel like a different planet than the one we inhabit daily. It inspired all of the Hudson River School painters, and we paint in many of the exact spots they painted.

In summer, the light does something extraordinary there. It comes off the water at angles that make painters slightly irrational. Loons call across the lake before anyone is awake. Mist rises off the water and hangs in the tree line like something staged. The Hudson River painters were accused of exaggerating sunset colors, but they truly are that brilliant because of the crisp, unpolluted air near the Canadian border.

We stay in comfortable new dorms at a college that looks out over the water, and we paint waterfalls, mountain scenes, and incredible lakes. People come back year after year — for the beauty of the place, yes, but equally for the beauty of the friendships.

And that’s only half of it. A small gathering of about 100 painters, and a stillness that doesn’t empty you out, it fills you up. No public show, no pressure to sell, no performance. Just easels at the water’s edge, long dinners that stretch into the kind of conversations you forgot you were capable of having, music, and friendships that have quietly become some of the most important of my life.

People who met as strangers at the first retreat are now in each other’s weddings, or texting photos of works-in-progress at midnight. That doesn’t happen at a conference. It happens when you slow down long enough to actually be present with people, in a place that insists on it.

This year’s retreat is nearly full; 75% gone as of this writing. If you’ve been curious, now is not the time to watch for details. Now is the time to act. Details at www.paintadirondacks.com.

Who Is This Guy Eric Rhoads?

Eric Rhoads is the founder and publisher of PleinAir Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine (both on newsstands nationally), author and host of six Art Marketing instruction videos, writes a blog on Art Marketing, and is the author of the Amazon bestseller Make More Money Selling Your Art. Additionally, he produces the weekly e-newsletters American Watercolor, Fine Art Today, Inside Art, PaintTube ArtNotes, Pastel Today, Plein Air Today, and Realism Today. Eric hosts the in-person Plein Air Convention & Expo, the Fine Art Trip for art collectors, and painting retreats including Paint Adirondacks, Fall Color Week, and the Winter Art Escape, as well as online virtual events Acrylic Live, Pastel Live, PleinAir Live, Realism Live, Watercolor Live Digital Painting Live, Gouache Live, and Art Business Mastery Day. He is also the producer of the PleinAir Salon Online Art Competition and art instructional courses through PaintTube.tv. Each weekday Eric hosts Art School Live, a YouTube show featuring free demos from a variety of artists, and he is host of the PleinAir Podcast and Art Marketing Minute Podcast. Eric is a plein air, landscape, and portrait painter with works at Castle Gallery. He is heavily involved in the radio industry as founder of Radio Ink Magazine as well as Radio + Television Business Report, the Radio Forecast Conference, and the Hispanic Radio Conference. He is the author of the bestselling book Blast from the Past: A Pictorial History of Radio’s First 75 Years. Eric lives in Austin, Texas, with his bride, Laurie, and they are the parents of triplets. Learn more at EricRhoads.com, or see Everything We Do.