As I wrap up another semester at Charleston Southern University, I am so impressed with what I have learned about the process from my students. I often say, if you want to learn how to sell, try teaching art to college students as an elective. But I think once they understood that I really was committed to their personal vision, they took much more ownership for their own progress.

My goal was to light a fire, give them some tools and let them loose. We worked a lot from life, which is important to me, that they get that connection with God and nature.

As a Christian college, we explored the spiritual nature of creativity and connecting with nature and the potential for art-making as an extension of their personal mission.

Those who have taken my workshops may see that as a departure for me. My workshops are very structured and intensely methodical. But always fun.

I see these guys working so hard in their majors, under such pressure to succeed. I wanted to give them a place to go where they could have fun and work on projects that meant something to them on a personal level. I wanted to create a place where they could escape the rat race that college can sometimes be. This is a followup to my earlier post from earlier in the semester, which set the tone for all the later work.

I am showing off a small sampling of their projects as experiences we shared in paint and paper. Everyone left behind the comfortable and familiar to explore new horizons. The theme was freedom. How can we use a variety of methods and structures to free us up, rather than box us in?

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