Conclusion: What I have learned.

  I have learned so much more about Art

  The question to what have I learned about the process of organizing an exhibition of works by various artists cannot be simply answered in one word or sentence. I have learned so much about what it takes, adjectivally speaking would be compassion, dedication, devotion and vision.
  I use these words with the deepest of meanings, and I am not just saying that to fill one's ears with words. The amount of compassion a person has to have for a gallery in itself is enormous. This person must have both passion for art and passion for what type of art they display. The compassionate part is sharing their passion with the world, through their eyes that is very intimate, emotional and at times very private.
  Dedication is such a simple word when used by itself. Dedication added to other words means more like dedicated their lives to their work has so much more impact than just dedication. That's what a curator, art gallery owner or artist does when they do this work. They have dedicated their lives to this work and most of the artists that I have displayed in my gallery were highly dedicated. Dedication to the aquatic life and oceanic scenery's, bringing what most people never get to see first hand, out from the cool depths of our enormous seas, so that children from all over the world may dream of someday visiting these places themselves.
  I am devoted to my gallery and this project. I feel very proud of what I have accomplished and what I have achieved over the past few days. I have devoted much of my time appreciating and understanding why these various artists do what they do, and all so well. Their level of devotion is without argument higher than mine but none the less, appreciated by all. I too have somehow in my own mind joined this league of artists whom see the world for it's natural beauty and have explored it's appreciation through the eyes of the beholder. It has made me more open to art and how I see that art. Whether it's paintings, sculptures, music, poems or mosaics, I now see not just the designs and colors but feel the passion or pain behind it.
  Vision is the deepest of all. An artist without a vision is like the sun without shine. Every artist has a vision, although that vision isn't clear in the beginning, that vision is always seen in the end. Like the 20/20 hindsight cliche, it is always a vision of what was and what became. I appreciate these artist and their lovely artworks because of their vision and the ability to put that vision out there for the world to see.
  The part that was the most natural for me was picking the art pieces that I used. I knew that I wanted to use bright colors and designs that really stood out. That was the main baseline factor for determine what I used and how I chose them. There were so many good ones, I wanted to use them all, but chose these for my own personal reasons. As a curator, the job is not easy and it takes a lot of devotion and dedication to the upkeep of a gallery. Mine was a virtual gallery which is simple, but I visited a couple of galleries in the local area. I asked one curator what was his job like and he said it was his life as he was also the artist. He lived above his studio and painted whenever. He said that he sometimes couldn'y sleep at night and so he would get up and paint. That to me was amazing and hard to comprehend. I have to work a full-time job and whatever spare time I have to hobbies, then I will do. His life was his hobby, painting was it. His paintings paid for his gallery, paint, food and shelter. I just think that is a very unstable lifestyle, but for him, it was all he knew. He chose that life and has dedicated his life to that dream.

  The reason why I chose aquatic and oceanic sceneries is because as a child I was always fascinated by the ocean. I am originally from Illinois, where there were no oceans, only pictures of oceans. I dreamed of one day being on the ocean, swimming through it's depths and seeing everything it had to offer. I still today am chasing that dream, I have moved closer to the ocean, I bought a boat and I have travelled around the world by different ships and boats. I have been scuba diving in Hawaii, snorkeling in Japan and travelled across the Pacific Ocean, which is just the beginning as someday I want to explore the the coldest of oceans, the Antartic. That's my dream and that's my discovery.