We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paul Bond a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Paul, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I am sometimes challenged with the term “purpose”. I feel that to live life as our most authentic selves, with passion and joy, is every human being’s ultimate purpose. However, I understand how the question is intended. As a painter and poet, so creating art and prose can be defined as my purpose as it is the most expression into the world of who I am on a soul level.
My discovery of that was a journey which began in my teens, when I first realized that I had a gift in drawing and painting. I was raised by parents who appreciated the arts, and often took us to museums, concerts and the theater. I was deeply moved by others’ creative expressions.. So I feel this planted the seed of a life in the arts. I received my degree in graphic design, and worked in that field for over 20 years. Yet during this time I also started to develop my painting style by creating personal works on the side, as well as dabble in writing short stories and poems.
Little by little I released these creations into the world, and little by little the responses I received encouraged me to continue. At 45, when I met my now wife, she encouraged me to make the leap into a full-time career as a painter of Magic Realism. And here I am now, living a fulfilled life of purpose and sharing my greatest gifts.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am a painter of Magic Realism imagery. Working primarily in oils, I create scenes where symbolic and fantastic elements blend with realistic atmospheres, unveiling a world where anything is possible. I often refers to then as “fairy tales for adults”. By merging and altering familiar objects –mixed with equal parts whimsy, wonder and mysticism – my works are snapshots of larger narratives. Stories that are intended to stir the soul of the viewer. My poems, which often accompany paintings, are also avenues for journeying into deeper emotions and insights.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Foremost is my ability to imagine a scene that I have never seen in real life. I believe that this ‘muscle of imagination’ was developed early on as a voracious reader of science fiction and fantasy novels, where I had to imagine characters and places that only existed in the stories. I can now see a scene in my travels and very easily imagine a picture in my mind’s eye of a new painting idea.
Next is patience and perseverance (a two-for-one). Because I did not have the pressure of needing to make a living from my art in the early years, I was able to paint only the images that I was inspired to create. And also evolved my skills as a painter over that time. It wasn’t until I was 50 years old that I was producing works that I now consider to be at the level that I am truly proud of.
Lastly, is gratitude. Daily dose of gratitude are a life practice for me for my health and well being. Being in a state of gratitude has always kept me in a high vibrational place of receptivity. It has has attracted opportunities into my life that I usually never had to go out and look or strive for. So many opportunities (artistic and otherwise) and riches and of every kind flow into my life as a result of me being grateful for what I already have.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
Shifting out of my comfort zone.
My wife and I moved to Costa Rica a little over a year ago. Having grown up mostly in the US, I’d became accustomed to a certain level of ease and efficiency in life. I know how things work in the US and my life was somewhat on autopilot. Living in another country can be a huge shift that I was not quite prepared for – even though we’d been spending a few months a year here prior to that. Cultural differences and how the government functions (or doesn’t) as well as the raw natural forces force one to be flexible and creative in ways I never really needed to be before. There was a belief in my mind that equated routine and predictability with safety. As I find myself outside of the parameters of how my life was structured up until now, there are times I feel I am floating free in terms of home and family and how I fit into this new life and place. My life-coach wife likes to use the analogy of a plant in a pot, in that we were in small pots before this, and have suddenly been planted in a field. I am being invited to develop the emotional skills to navigate this new sense of expansion and the fears it sometimes brings up, as well the grieving of having left a life behind that was very ingrained and defined.
Life has suddenly become very interesting.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.paulbondart.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/paulbondart
- Facebook:www.facebook.com/PaulBondFineArt
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@paulbond3712
Image Credits
All paintings copyright Paul Bond.
