When You're Not Painting are you Painting?

I used to feel bad about times when I wasn't working in the studio. I would be very black and white about things - if I'm not in the studio right now it must mean I'm not really an artist. Wow! What kind of standard was I holding myself to? Talk about perfectionism as a total roadblock - whew! Over time though, I came to realize that as an artist, almost all my time is connected to my work as an artist. Yes, of course, those days when I've got an actual paint loaded brush in my hand its obvious that I'm an 'artist' - textbook illustration, right? But really, it's all the thousands of little decisions, the actions, the looking and the thought that lead up to that moment of applying the brush to the canvas that make the artist. So now I see that even when I'm not painting, I'm somewhere else in my process of painting and its all valuable.

Spent a lot of time in airports this summer, but there were moments of beauty too.