Funny, looking back I never thought of myself as an artist, at least not until I started writing. Perhaps through the novels I've written, I have awakened something that was always there, an innate interest in the arts. I find that I now appreciate different works of art in a way now that I never did before. When I listen to songs, for example, I more readily hear a message, sometimes subtle, sometimes not so much, which the songwriter seems to be trying to convey. The same with music, paintings, etc. Whether it's a novel, poetry, a magnificent painting, or a wonderful ballad, it seems to me that
most art has the same quality, or expression of the human spirit, in it, a quality that impersonal science lacks.
Now don't get me wrong, the novels I've written didn't make me an artist, they only opened my eyes to an interest in the arts that was already there. I suppose that since my maternal grandfather was a talented artist-a painter, and that my father is a songwriter, musician, and a novelist, maybe it just runs in the family.
