A Poverty of Attention

A while back, I was blessed to have my friend Steven Shay invite me to join Lost Arts, founded by Charles Adler. This morning, I read a piece Charles wrote on Attention & Abundance that really struck a chord.

He quoted Nobel laureate Herbert Simon: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

That stopped me in my tracks.

The internet built my art career. As a self-taught artist, I did it without galleries, museums, art contests, or anyone opening doors. Just me, busting my ass, finding collectors around the world and building relationships directly. And for that, I'll always be grateful.

But after more than two decades online, I barely recognize the place.

What once connected us has become an endless competition for attention. Bite-sized clips, mindless scrolling, millions of artists fighting to be seen on billion-dollar platforms. Even those of us who love to read, think, and truly PAY ATTENTION have been trained like circus monkeys to keep scrolling.

And somewhere along the way, I think we've lost something incredibly important: the beauty of actually being present.

I'm beginning to see people finding their way back to real life. Real conversations. Real art. Real connections.

And that's what I want to create here, in my little corner of nowhere in Northwest Indiana. A place to simply make art, gather with others who do the same, and welcome the art lovers who find their way to us.

It's what my husband and I originally set out to do when we moved to southern Indiana in 2015. But six months later, our world turned upside down. I discovered my artwork had fallen into the hands of countless counterfeit operations, selling reproductions of my images everywhere. The very internet that had built my business was now being used to dismantle it, cut by cut. Death by a thousand cuts.

What followed was nearly a decade of fighting to save something I'd poured my heart, soul, and a hell of a lot of hard work into building.

The internet can create extraordinary things. It can also destroy them.

But maybe, in my own small way, I can help reverse that poverty of attention.

I want to see people step out from behind their screens and back into the world. Face to face. Eye to eye. Standing in front of a real painting, talking to the person who made it, sharing a conversation that isn't measured in likes, clicks, or followers.

Because art was never meant to be just another image we scroll past.

Less scrolling. More seeing. Less noise. More art. More humanity.

It's time to put down the screens, walk out the door, and rediscover the extraordinary things waiting for us in the REAL world.

That's the kind of abundance I want to be part of creating.