Stress, anxiety, fear of the future, worry, and mental agitation -- these are norms in a corporatized, overworked society. The constant barrage of mass media non-news which, for some reason, we voluntarily absorb, does not improve matters.

So we try to get away from it all, take a break, go someplace else, but given that most people carry their phones -- the numbers of which their employers have -- with them everywhere, it's difficult to break out of the cycle. But it is vital that we do so, daily, hourly, constantly, to counteract the forces that -- consciously or not -- seek to control, agitate, and subjugate our creative human spirit.

In a recent foray to the coast for painting reference material, Steve and his extremely active granddaughter spent the day building sand castles and wading in the surf. In order to do this properly, one must take off one's shoes, which the two did. At one point, they were two of three people on the beach, the third person a young woman who stood off from the surf, watching Steve and the tireless 7-year-old jumping in the waves.

"She looked sad," Steve remembers. "Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her walking by, head down and gait dragging, and wondered what thoughts were bringing her down. She stopped for several minutes and I could feel her watching us.

"And then she stooped down, took off her shoes, rolled up her pant legs, and waded into the surf. At first she dabbled her feet, then she got a little braver and hopped a bit. The last I saw of her she was skipping up and down, dancing through the waves down the coast. Whatever it was that oppressed her, she found freedom from it in the sand, the surf, and going barefoot."

Small acts lead to big things.

Ocean Breeze, original oil painting, also available as a licensed print. Find Steve's prints, which celebrate joy and hope in the world's beauty that we frequently walk by each day and don't notice because we're thinking about the next task we need to attack, at the following online retailers:

Regardless of what we do, we all have some form of Monday, that first day or moment after a break -- no matter how long or short that break is -- in which we are back working, creating (one hopes), doing, performing.  Whether or not we like what we do, Mondays are never easy.

For very young children, Mondays of the work world do not exist in the way they do for adults, although in both corporate and industrialized society, we do our best to make them so. "Get them into pre-school," we urge, "so they can learn time management, socialization, and important things."

But young children are steeped in the important things, and left to their own devices, have much to teach us as adults. They live for the moment. They are curious, adventurous, experimental, and open with their feelings. They trust good people, and are uncannily wary of those not deserving that trust. Because they have to, they rely upon the goodness of others to meet their needs. We as adults look longingly at this sense of security in the strength of others, but through experience have learned not to trust it.

Those who believe in God often struggle with whether or not He is the perfect parent that good parents are to their children, this struggle  exacerbated by religious systems that focus on laws, regulations, and statutes set up by men and their . . . corporations. Those who don't believe in Him struggle when they see the pain that humankind inflicts upon itself through the grasping of greed.

But within us all, no matter how deep, is the recognition that childhood -- with its innocence, vulnerability, trust, need, curiosity, and wonder -- is something to cherish, protect, and, for those who follow the words of Christ, emulate. There is still something of the child within you, longing to laugh, looking to explore, willing to wonder at that which is wonderful, and understanding that no one is capable of doing this all on one's own.

Lilac Festival, shown above, is an original oil painting by Steve Henderson, celebrating the sense of wonder and awe that children find in the world around them. It is available as a stretched canvas print at Great Big Canvas, Amazon.com, Prints.com, Fulcrum Gallery, and Framed Canvas Art.

There is a difference between being self reliant and self sufficient, and because people confuse the two, they frequently give up on living a more independent life even before they get started.

Self sufficiency, which implies that a person supply most or all of their own needs, is discouragingly difficult to achieve: it's not enough to sew one's own jacket: one must have woven the material oneself, from wool that one has spun from the sheep that one has raised and shorn. It's best to do the sewing by hand, using a needle made from a bone from an animal, either an animal one has raised, or slain oneself using a homemade arrow (carved from a tree one cut down with a hand hewn ax).

It goes on and on, and while this scenario seems absurd, our introduction to self sufficiency frequently deals with stories -- imagined or real -- of people living more difficult, brutal lives than we choose for ourselves.

But self reliance is another matter. Self reliance, at base, means that we trust our abilities, instinct, intelligence and skill to do something, anything, for ourselves, instead of relying upon experts for direction, or an impersonal, global corporation or entity to supply a need or want that we can learn to supply for ourselves. It can be as simple as growing one tomato plant in a pot, and celebrating the consumption of its fruit. Or creating a personalized greeting card using the odds and ends we all have on hand. Or developing our own opinion on a matter that others, whom we falsely perceive to be wiser than ourselves, have already weighed in on.

Bit by bit, as we try more things for ourselves and develop skills we did not know that we have, we trust more and more in the capabilities of our hands, the strength of our intellect, the power of the ability to question, the joy of creativity, and before we know it, we find that we are doing more things for ourselves. And in the confidence we develop from this endeavor, we realize that we do not have to do everything ourselves, because there are others, who have invested their own time and abilities in other areas, who have skills we have not had time to develop. We are human, with limited life spans, and there is joy in celebrating the abilities of other individuals.

Be. Create. Dream. Try. Fail and try again. Learn from your mistakes. Share with others. Become the person you were meant to be.

Steve Henderson has invested his skill and time into creating representational paintings that capture the color, light, and beauty of the world around us, so that people can enjoy fine art in their homes. He sells his work as Original Paintings, and, because he recognizes that not everyone can afford an original painting, he works hard to get his images licensed as more affordable prints and canvas wall art. You can find Steve's art at

It is the oldest courthouse in the state of Washington, first constructed in 1886, but not too many years ago, the Columbia County Courthouse in Dayton, WA, had fallen into disrepair. A group of hardworking, regular, ordinary people -- concerned about the possible loss of an historical landmark -- banded together to seek funding and the construction expertise needed to bring this architectural piece of art back to its original state. The courthouse is a prominent feature on Dayton's Main Street.

Steve is honored to have been commissioned to paint this historic landmark. The Columbia County Courthouse painting adorns the chambers of a federal court judge, whose own memories include summer picnics on the spacious lawn.

Commissioned paintings are a beautiful way to capture memories of people, places, and times, unique to all of us. Contact Steve to find out more about how you can create a customized, highly personal work of art that will be a family treasure for generations to come.