RadianceThrough The Rain |

Wondering while Wandering…an artist’s limp toward finding ‘Radiance Through the Rain’

‘May the Rain of Suffering Soften Our Hearts, Seeping Radiance to Our Thirsty Places.’

Welcome!

The purpose and role of the artist are to bring awareness to others so that they stop and consider what possibly would have gone unnoticed. There is only one Creator: the painter only recreates.

“I cannot imagine a man looking at the sky and denying God.”
– Abraham Lincoln

I’m an artist: a painter, a poet, and an author.

I paint in acrylic, depicting how light affects water in all its forms. Whether the regal heights of the cumulus thunderhead, low-lying mists of early morning, crashing seascapes, thunderous waterfalls, or a minute raindrop clinging to a morning leaf. I find my passion in the moods presented to me through water and light.

I have been most influenced by the great British painter of light, J.M.W. Turner, as well as American painter, Eric Sloane, who was a true pioneer in the painting of skies and who earlier coined the term, “Cloudscapes.”

I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and raised just east of the Rockies, near Calgary, Alberta. I became keenly aware of the province’s northern natural beauty during those formative years. The high prairie skies and their dramatic storms made a particularly strong visual impact on me.

My world travels have also inspired me, thus giving my work a sense of adventure and mystery. I have traveled in over sixty-five countries, including Europe, North and Central America, the Amazon Rain Forest, and the Galapagos Islands. I have hiked the high ranges of the Andes, Alps, Pyrenees, and Norwegian Fiords. These adventures have heightened my awareness of the vast diversity found in the natural world. My travels have taken me to Asia, Nepal and North Bengal, India, and once again back into the Amazon Rain Forest, this time in Peru and Venezuela.

My high school and college years were spent in the Toronto area studying commercial art. Subsequently, I worked for four-plus decades as a graphic artist and ad account executive, including owning and operating my own advertising firm for twenty-five years.

For thirteen years, I lived and worked in Europe and South America with non-government organizations.

My paintings have been shown at the National Museum of Ecuador and I have done commissioned work for members of the government of Ecuador. Since seventeen, I have had my work in commercial galleries in Canada. My work is also found in corporate and private collections in Canada and abroad.

My previous book, Radiance through the Rain, is a hardcover limited edition coffee table book showing more than one hundred images of my paintings. Alongside of the paintings are sixty-one essays/poems on how the act of painting is a metaphor for doing life and relationships. Much of that thinking will bleed into this blog, Wondering While Wandering. But here, this is just you and I quietly pondering our devotional lives. Those of you who purchased Radiance Through the Rain may think some of my wandering thoughts are worth sharing. This blog is the venue.

I have endeavoured to characterize who I am and the intent of this blog in the permanent categories—‘Introduction, Inspiration, and About Me’—listed along the top of the blog format.

I decided that it would be best to sketch out who this artist, poet, and author is in those top areas so that they didn’t become buried as I wrote ongoing posts. In this way, new readers can dip in and see if this pathway was something they wanted to walk in and on regularly or not.

I plan—and plans as you know, often go awry—to post something bi-weekly. I will not go into any detail here on what or why as it’s all been penciled in those permanent categories. I should note though that they will all be disparate, random thoughts that pass my way as I struggle to work things out through ‘Wondering While Wandering’.

If you wish to subscribe or contact me, please send your email to:

radiancethroughtherain@gmail.com

I look forward to having two-way conversations as things progress in 2023. That said, if you wish to sit back with your wine or coffee and think quietly along with me, fine.

In the meantime, be well, and again a warm welcome here.

Doug

Copyright © 2022 J. Douglas Thompson

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J. Douglas Thompson surrounded by two of his paintings.

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