Welcome to the Aquablue Images Creative Blog
I’m William Leslie, the artist, photographer, and designer behind Aquablue Images. This blog is a space where creativity, observation, and imagination come together—a place to explore not only what artists create, but also how we see, feel, question, and discover.
So again - Welcome. I'm so glad you're here.
The Courage to Keep Creating: How Criticism Can Strengthen—or Silence—a Creative Person
The Courage to Keep Creating: How Criticism Can Strengthen—or Silence—a Creative Person
I think I would rather you call me ugly or insult my mother than say harsh things about my art.
Not really, of course.
Maybe I felt that way when I was younger, but age has made my skin—although considerably more wrinkled—extremely thick. Time has a way of doing that. If we are fortunate, the years soften our need for approval while strengthening our belief in who we are. Eventually, we begin to understand that criticism is not fatal. Unpleasant, perhaps. Painful, certainly. But survivable. For a young artist, however, harsh criticism can make or break the creative spirit.
I remember receiving criticism about my style, my subject matter, my use of color—everything. Someone always seemed eager to explain what I had done wrong, what I should have done differently, or what they would have done if the artwork had belonged to them. But it did not belong to them. It belonged to me.
That is what makes art criticism so complicated. Art is not simply an object an artist manufactures and places on a wall. It comes from somewhere much deeper. It carries pieces of our memories, fears, questions, passions, and experiences. Even when the subject appears simple, something personal is woven into it. Every brushstroke, photograph, design, or carefully chosen color contains a small piece of the person who created it. When someone rejects the work, it can feel as though they are rejecting the artist.
Art is subjective, of course. One person’s masterpiece is another person’s trash liner. A painting that moves someone to tears may leave someone else completely unmoved. A photograph one person finds haunting and beautiful may be dismissed by another as dark or uncomfortable. The very color that makes one viewer feel alive may remind another of something they would rather forget. The artist has no control over any of that.
We cannot control what another person sees when they look at our work. We cannot control what they feel—or whether they feel anything at all. We cannot force someone to understand our intentions, appreciate our choices, or recognize the personal history behind what we created. The only thing we can control is how we respond. That lesson took me years to learn.
When we are young, criticism can become louder than our own creative voice. One careless remark can follow us back into the studio and stand behind us while we work. It can cause us to question every decision. We begin choosing safer colors, safer subjects, and safer ideas. We stop creating what feels true and start creating what we hope will be approved. Little by little, the work may become more acceptable—but less alive. That is how criticism can silence an artist. It doesn't always make us stop creating completely. Sometimes it does something far more subtle: it convinces us to stop creating honestly.
It takes courage to make something from such a deeply personal place and allow others to see it. Every time an artist shares a piece of work, there is an element of exposure. We are revealing something we may not know how to express in ordinary language. We are saying, “This is what I saw. This is what I felt. This is the way the world looked from where I was standing.” There is no guarantee that anyone will understand. There is also no guarantee that they will be kind. But courage is not only required to share the work. It also takes courage to keep going after the work has been criticized. An artist must eventually choose: become reluctant to create from that vulnerable, deeply personal place, or accept the risk and keep returning to it.
I have come to believe that a strong reaction—even a negative one—can show the work reached someone. Something from your deeply personal place touched something in theirs. Perhaps it brought them joy. Perhaps it made them uncomfortable. Perhaps it challenged what they believed or awakened something they had buried. Their reaction may not be the one you wanted, but the work crossed the distance between two human beings and caused something to happen. Isn’t that one of the reasons we create?
Artists often say they do not care what anyone thinks. I am not sure that is entirely true. If we genuinely did not care, we might never show the work to anyone. Somewhere inside us is a desire to communicate, connect, and be seen. We hope our work will make someone pause for a moment. We hope it creates a feeling, starts a conversation, or leaves an impression that lingers after the viewer has walked away.
Positive reactions encourage us. Negative reactions challenge us. Constructive criticism can teach us. Even harsh criticism can strengthen us—if we refuse to allow it to define us. But indifference is different. No reaction may be worse than criticism because indifference suggests that the work never made contact. It passed before someone’s eyes without ever reaching the heart, the mind, or the imagination. I would rather create something that provokes debate than something so polished, safe and predictable that it leaves no impression at all. That does not mean I should ignore every criticism. There is a difference between cruelty and thoughtful critique. An artist should stay humble enough to listen, wise enough to recognize useful insight, and confident enough to discard opinions with no value. Thick skin should protect the creative spirit, not prevent the artist from growing.
Criticism can become a tool rather than a weapon. It can force us to examine our choices, clarify our intentions, and decide what truly matters in our work. Sometimes it exposes a weakness. Sometimes it confirms that we have taken a meaningful risk. And sometimes it simply reminds us that not everyone is our audience. That is all right. You cannot please everyone, so why try?
Art should never be reduced to style over substance. Style may attract attention, but substance gives the work its soul. Technique can impress the eye, but truth is what reaches the heart. The artist’s responsibility is not to create something that everyone will like. It is to create something honest—something with enough life inside it to risk being misunderstood. Age has not made criticism disappear. It has simply taught me where to place it. I listen. I consider it. I take what helps me grow, and I leave the rest behind. Then I return to the work.
Because the greatest victory over harsh criticism is not a clever response or a thicker skin; it is refusing to be silenced. It is creating the next piece.
— William Leslie
Artist • Photographer • Designer
Aquablue Images
The Book I Never Finished
Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the day I married my best friend, my partner, my muse, my love, my soul mate. My everything. My completion. Twenty years. It seems impossible when I say it out loud. There are moments when it feels as though we just met, and others when I can barely remember what my life looked like before there was a “we”. I have done absolutely nothing in my life deserving of the blessing God has given me in Rosemarie. I don't know why He chose to be so generous with me. I just know that He was. And even if I were willing to entertain the possibility that my wife isn't perfect—which I'm not—it is undeniable that she is perfect for me. Perfectly, wonderfully, inexplicably perfect for me.
People often ask us how we met.
It seems every great couple is supposed to have a great beginning story. Some people meet in high school. Some are introduced by friends. Some bump into each other in a grocery store or reach for the same book in a bookstore. We have a pretty good story ourselves. And God is at the center of every bit of it. Because how else do two imperfect people, living halfway across the country from one another, somehow find each other at exactly the right moment? I don't believe in coincidence. I believe God brought us together by His grace and in His perfect timing. More importantly, I believe He brought us together at precisely the moment when we were finally capable of recognizing and appreciating the gift He was giving us.
Chapter One: Before We Found Each Other
Around the time we met, Rosemarie and I were both rebuilding our lives after failed relationships. Maybe that's one of the most important parts of our story. Neither of us were frantically searching for the perfect person. We were spending time looking inward instead. We were working on our own imperfections, trying to understand ourselves a little better and becoming the people we needed to become. There is something to be said for that. Sometimes we spend so much time asking God to send us the right person that perhaps we forget to ask Him to help us become the right person.
We didn't know each other yet. But God knew both of us. He knew where I was. He knew where she was. And He knew what was coming. Among other things, I am an artist. Rosemarie is a writer. And as "luck" would have it—and by luck, of course, I mean God—Rosemarie had written a children's book and needed someone to illustrate it. At the time, she was navigating that ancient artifact from the early days of social media known as MySpace.
Yes, MySpace.
For those too young to remember, there really was a world before Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Somewhere among millions of profiles, pictures, songs that automatically played whether you wanted them to or not, and everyone's carefully curated "Top 8," something caused Rosemarie to stop at my page. She heard my song. I do not remember what my song was back then, but by now, it is surely a classic oldie. She saw my artwork. She contacted me. And what began essentially as a job interview slowly became conversations that had very little to do with illustrating a children's book.
We talked. And talked. And talked some more. About art. About writing. About life. About disappointment. About dreams. About faith. About where we had been and, eventually, where we hoped we were going. There is a point in some relationships when conversation stops feeling like the process of getting to know somebody and begins feeling strangely like remembering someone you've somehow always known. That's what happened with us. The miles between Florida and Oklahoma didn't disappear, of course. They just began to matter less. Eventually, a children's book project somehow culminated in me packing up my life and moving from Oklahoma to Florida.
That was one hell of a job interview.
Chapter Two: Happily Ever After
I suppose this is where the "Happily Ever After" portion of the story began. There was, however, one small problem. I never finished illustrating Rosemarie's children's book. Life happened. Our life happened. We fell in love. We built a home. We built a marriage. We accumulated memories, photographs, inside jokes, triumphs, disappointments, laughter, tears (happy and sad) and all of those seemingly ordinary moments that eventually become the story of a life together. The book that had brought us together quietly disappeared into the background. Years passed. Then more years. The manuscript moved with us through life, occasionally resurfacing before disappearing again into a drawer, a box or a pile of things we promised ourselves we'd eventually get around to. Apparently, my turnaround time on illustration projects is somewhere in the neighborhood of two decades. Rosemarie has been remarkably patient with her illustrator.
Chapter Three: And Then God Winked
Recently, we were having lunch with some friends when the familiar question came up again. "So, how did you two meet?" We told the story. MySpace. The writer in Florida. The artist in Oklahoma. The messages. The conversations. The unlikely connection. The move. The marriage. And, of course, the children's book I never finished. We laughed about it. Later that same day, something happened.
I came across the manuscript.
There it was. Familiar. Tattered. Twenty years older. Waiting. Now, you can call that a coincidence if you'd like. I won't. I've lived long enough to recognize that God doesn't always announce Himself with thunder. Sometimes He whispers. Sometimes He gently nudges. Sometimes He places something directly in your path that you've walked past a hundred times before and, for reasons you can't explain, this time you see it.
Although I don't believe in coincidences, I do believe in God's many "mini" blessings. Those little moments that might seem insignificant by themselves but become something much larger when viewed from a distance. Finding that manuscript on the very day we'd been telling the story of how it brought us together felt like one of those moments. It felt like God saying, you know, you really should finish this. So, I did.
Chapter Four: Twenty Years Late
I picked up the manuscript again, but I wasn't the same artist who had first agreed to illustrate it. Twenty years had changed me. I had lived more. Loved more. Lost more. Learned more. My art had changed because I had changed. And sitting down to finally create those illustrations, I realized I wasn't merely finishing an old project. I was revisiting the beginning of our story. Every character I drew carried me back to those first conversations. Every page reminded me of the woman who had taken a chance on an artist halfway across the country. Every illustration was connected, however indirectly, to a decision that changed the entire course of my life. Had Rosemarie never written that book, she would never have needed an illustrator. Had she not gone looking for one, perhaps she wouldn't have been on MySpace that day. Had she not stopped on my page, she wouldn't have seen my artwork.
Had she not sent that first message...
Well, there are some roads I don't particularly enjoy imagining. Because that unfinished little children's book became the doorway through which the greatest blessing of my life walked. Maybe that's why it wasn't supposed to be finished twenty years ago. Maybe its first purpose wasn't to be published. Maybe its first purpose was simply to bring two people together. And once it had accomplished that, perhaps God was content to let it sit quietly on a shelf until we were ready for its next chapter. There is something beautiful about finishing it now. The young writer who originally handed me those words became my wife. The illustrator she hired became her husband. And the manuscript that once represented the possibility of a professional collaboration became an artifact from the beginning of our life together. It isn't just a children's book anymore. It's part of our history.
Chapter Five: The Better Story
Looking back, I've realized something else. I thought Rosemarie had hired me to illustrate her story. I had no idea God was illustrating ours. The lines weren't always where I would have put them. The colors weren't always ones I would have chosen. There were pages I didn't understand while we were living them. There were unexpected turns in the composition. There were shadows. There was light. There were revisions. But slowly, year after year, a picture emerged. Us. Not perfect people. Not a perfect life. But two people perfectly suited for one another, doing their best to walk through this life side by side. Maybe that's what a soul mate really is. Not someone who arrives without flaws, but someone whose hand somehow fits yours while the two of you navigate them together. Someone who sees the unfinished parts of you and stays. Someone who celebrates the masterpiece and loves the rough sketches. Someone who reminds you who you are when you've temporarily forgotten. Someone who makes home less about geography and more about presence.
For me, that person is Rosemarie. She is my best friend. My partner. My muse. My love. My soul mate. My everything. My completion. And nearly twenty years into this adventure, I'm still amazed that God looked at the enormous map between Oklahoma and Florida, looked at two people rebuilding their lives, looked at an unfinished children's manuscript and an artist's MySpace page and somehow connected all the dots.
No, I don't believe in coincidence. I believe in grace. I believe in timing. I believe in those countless little "mini" blessings God scatters along our path that often don't reveal their significance until years later. And I believe that sometimes the things we think we failed to finish aren't unfinished at all. Maybe they're simply waiting for the right time. The children's book is finally illustrated. Twenty years late. I suppose Rosemarie could have hired an illustrator who was a little timelier in completing her project. Thankfully, she has been very understanding about the delay. And now that the book is finally complete, we can hopefully spend another twenty years or so getting it published.
I'm in no particular hurry.
— William Leslie
Artist • Photographer • Designer
Aquablue Images
The Things We Swore We Would Never Forget
The Things We Swore We Would Never Forget
I remember the details of September 11, 2001, very well. I think everyone who was old enough to understand what was happening remembers that day. We remember where we were when we first heard. We remember who told us. We remember turning on the television and seeing something so unthinkable that our minds could not immediately accept it as real. We remember the smoke, the confusion, the falling debris, and the terrible realization that what we were watching was not a movie, an accident, or a distant nightmare.
It was happening. …and it was real.
I remember watching the wall-to-wall news coverage after the buildings were struck. I was like a moth drawn to a flame. I knew the images were hurting me, but I could not turn away. Perhaps I kept watching because some part of me believed that if I paid close enough attention, the incomprehensible would begin to make sense. Perhaps I was waiting for someone to explain how the world could feel familiar one moment and permanently altered the next. …but no explanation ever came.
The same images played again and again. Each replay carried the same shock, even after we knew what was coming. We watched because the magnitude of the loss was too large to absorb all at once. We watched because we felt helpless. We watched because turning away somehow felt disrespectful to the people who could not escape and to those running toward the danger when every instinct must have told them to run from it. That day, ordinary people became heroes in full view of the world. First responders climbed stairs others were desperately descending. Strangers helped strangers. People made final phone calls to say the words that mattered most. In the midst of unimaginable cruelty, there were acts of courage, sacrifice, tenderness, and love. I swore I would never forget. And yet, in ways that are painful to admit, I have forgotten. We have all forgotten. We have not forgotten the date. We have not forgotten the towers, the Pentagon, or Flight 93. We have not forgotten the images permanently embedded in our collective memory. But we have forgotten some of what followed. We have forgotten the humanity. We have forgotten the unity.
For a brief period, the usual barriers between us seemed less important. Political differences, social divisions, regional identities, and personal disagreements were overshadowed by a shared grief. American flags appeared everywhere—on homes, cars, storefronts, jackets, and front porches. They did not feel like decorations. They felt like declarations. Declarations that we belonged to one another and that an attack on some of us had wounded all of us. We remembered that America was not merely a place on a map. It was a promise we were responsible for keeping together. We felt an extraordinary pride in being American—not the loud pride that requires an enemy, but the humbling pride that comes from witnessing courage, service, and sacrifice. We honored firefighters, police officers, paramedics, service members, volunteers, and countless ordinary citizens who responded with the best of humanity during its worst moments. We looked at our families differently. We hugged people longer. We called those we had not spoken to recently. We said I love you with greater urgency. We understood, at least for a while, that the routines we often complain about are actually evidence of an extraordinary blessing: another ordinary day. We promised to cherish those days as if any one of them could be our last.
Then life continued.
That is both life’s mercy and its danger. Human beings cannot remain indefinitely at the emotional intensity of catastrophe. We return to work, appointments, bills, errands, celebrations, and frustrations. The unbearable gradually becomes history. The lesson that once felt carved into our souls begins to soften around the edges. Twenty-five years have now passed. It is difficult to believe. The children born in 2001 are now adults. An entire generation knows September 11 primarily through photographs, documentaries, classrooms, memorials, and stories told by those who were there. To them, it is history. To those of us who witnessed it, it remains something else—a wound that time covered but never completely healed.
I wish I had kept the newspaper from September 12, 2001. I imagine unfolding those aging pages every few years, feeling the brittle paper between my fingers, and being confronted again by the headlines and photographs of a world still trying to comprehend what had happened. Perhaps rereading it would have refreshed more than my memory of the event. Perhaps it would have reminded me of the promises I made to myself in its aftermath.
Do not take people for granted.
Do not waste precious time feeding bitterness.
Do not allow differences to erase our shared humanity.
Do not assume there will always be another day to say what needs to be said.
But I did not save the newspaper. What I saved instead were words of my own. When I am deeply wounded in my soul, I bleed words. Writing has always been one of the ways I search for meaning when life overwhelms my ability to understand it. Some pain cannot remain contained inside us. It demands a language, even when language feels inadequate. After September 11, I needed to place my grief somewhere. I needed to make sense of the senseless, or at least acknowledge that it had changed me. So, I opened my journal and wrote a poem. I was not thinking about publication. I was trying to breathe through words. The poem was an attempt to gather shock, sorrow, fear, anger, patriotism, and hope into something I could hold. It became a personal record of what that moment felt like before time could dull it and life could distract me from it. That poem was eventually selected and published by The Village Voice in New York City. There is something profoundly meaningful to me about that. Words written privately in response to a wounded city found their way back to that city. What began as an entry in my journal became part of a larger expression of grief and remembrance. My poem could not repair what had been broken, but it allowed me to bear witness. It joined the millions of prayers, photographs, paintings, songs, stories, and memorials created by people trying to honor the lost and understand the world left behind. That is one of art’s sacred purposes.
Art does not always provide answers. Sometimes it simply refuses to let the questions disappear. It preserves what emotion felt like after facts have been organized into timelines. It carries the trembling human truth that history books cannot fully contain. Perhaps the poem became the newspaper I failed to save. It holds a version of me who was still staring at the television, still trying to understand, and still promising never to forget. Reading it now connects me to the person I was in those first raw days. It reminds me that remembrance is not only the ability to recall what happened. It is the willingness to recover what the experience once taught us. To truly remember September 11 is not to live permanently in fear, anger, or sorrow. It is to honor the lives lost by living our own lives with greater purpose. It is to recognize the courage of those who served by finding ways to serve others. It is to reclaim the unity that briefly reminded us we were neighbors before we were opponents.
Memory should ask something of us. It should ask us to be kinder while we still have the opportunity. It should ask us to call the person we have been meaning to call. It should ask us to release grudges that have consumed too many irreplaceable days. It should ask us to look beyond the divisions continually placed before us, both personally and politically, and remember how quickly those divisions vanished when our shared humanity was laid bare. Twenty-five years later, I still remember September 11, 2001. I remember the pictures. I remember the voices. I remember the helplessness of watching and the desperate need to understand. But this anniversary challenges me to remember something more difficult: the person I promised I would become afterward. I swore I would never forget. Maybe remembering begins with admitting that I did. Maybe it continues by opening an old journal, reading the words that once bled from a wounded soul, and allowing them to teach me again.
We cannot return to September 12, 2001. We cannot recreate its grief, and we should never wish to. But perhaps we can recover some of its clarity—the knowledge that life is fragile, love should not be postponed, courage often looks like service, and our common humanity is far greater than the things that divide us. The newspaper is gone. The years have passed. The skyline has changed. But the words remain. And while they remain, perhaps there is still time to remember what I once swore I would never forget.
“Holes in the Sky”
Looking up to see the angels, searching through the heavens,
Praying for divine intervention on this day—September Eleven.
The noise above was deafening—a jet was flying too low,
Preparing to do the unthinkable as the panic began to grow.
In a moment, they were gone; all of them now heroes—
Soldiers lost within a war against an enemy no one knows.
They were everyday Americans, living ordinary routines,
Suddenly caught within a battle born of actions so obscene.
They would receive no warning; they had no time to wonder why—
Their whole world torn apart, without a chance to say goodbye.
Some spoke another language in this melting pot, diverse;
So many faces, so many colors—finding freedom now a curse.
The executive in the tower and the young man sorting mail—
No longer separated, now together on the scale.
Unspeakable acts of terror—death plotted, bought and paid for—
Meant to fracture all our faith and shake us to the core.
What consumed the terrorists completely ruled their lives—
Bitterness their motive, hatred cutting like a knife.
The stairwells filled with strangers, crowded closely face-to-face,
All moving in one direction, beyond culture, creed, or race.
A husband’s final “I love you” from the backseat of a plane,
Calling home to share his heart—determined not to die in vain.
Brave souls came together, knowing what must now be done,
Sacrificing for the greater good—a terrorist victory undone.
Hospital workers stood prepared, still waiting, waiting, waiting;
But the wounded never came—the souls they were anticipating.
The sickening sound of bodies suddenly striking the ground—
Everyone knew what it meant, yet no one dared to look around.
Suffering and enduring the worst imaginable hell,
Left with no escape or choice—from towering windows, people fell.
Countless heroes stood at the ready, answering the call—
Yesterday without faces, now forever standing tall.
We watched them in the rubble, dressed in uniforms and masks,
Moving stone and death and dust, devoted to their solemn tasks.
The television was a window looking in upon the pain—
Surely none of this was real: no rainbows, only rain.
Hopeful rescue workers searched among the ruins for the living,
Moving wreckage piece by piece, committed to the hope they were giving.
They had witnessed hell on Earth, but this was somehow worse—
Worse than any hell imagined, born of hatred so perverse.
They would find immortality, though that was not the goal they set;
By confronting their mortality, this day we won’t forget.
The victims were so numerous—so many husbands, so many wives,
And innocent young children needlessly deprived of life.
Two hundred floors of offices—not a phone, a desk, or chair—
Now reduced to scraps of paper and the ashes of despair.
Yesterday, those papers mattered—proof of selling, having, buying;
Now a mournful ticker-tape tribute to the frightened, dead, and dying.
Our lives were changed forever, and it seemed we were defined
By the victims who were taken and the victims left behind.
Never would we see the world the way we had before the dust;
Drawn more closely than before, now truly, “In God We Trust.”
Right- and left-wing critics joined together in one voice;
A president addressed the nation: “With us or against us—their choice.”
There was nothing holy in this war—only madness, grief, and dust;
There would have to be a reckoning as nations rallied around us.
Even though the clocks had stopped, time still had to carry on;
Many people went to fight, and in a moment, they were gone.
Friends and families stayed behind, fearing for a loved one’s fate,
Knowing what must now be done, revealing what will make us great.
It was a war without an ending, with no country of its own;
Still, we vowed that we would find them wherever they might roam.
Were those who perished heroes—or the ones they left behind?
A higher standard for an ancient word, now painfully redefined.
There seemed to be no silver lining, only storm clouds on the rise;
We fell helpless to our knees and begged for guidance from the skies.
With the wounds inflicted Tuesday, they had hoped to breed despair;
Yet we rose instead, united with a strength beyond compare.
They had gravely underestimated the character of us all;
Adversity revealed our best as we answered every call.
We want to live, but we are not afraid—death is only one more door;
For a world of peace for all our children is worth struggling for.
In the shadows stood Miss Liberty, a teardrop in her eye;
Where the towers once had risen—only two holes in the sky.
Will we ever see the world the way we saw it once before?
Or will nightmares haunt our sleep, with planes again off course?
— William Leslie
Artist • Photographer • Designer
Aquablue Images
"Lost and Found"
We weren’t looking to adopt another dog. We already had two, and our hands—and our hearts—were full.
Then we met Satchmo.
We didn’t find him. He found us. Actually, I believe God brought him to us. We didn’t understand why at the time, but we would soon find out.
We received a call from a dear friend about a dog who needed to be rehomed. He had been abandoned by his owners after they divorced. Apparently, amid the division of homes, belongings and lives, he did not warrant either person’s consideration. He was sent to a foster home and eventually landed with a very kind but understandably overwhelmed middle-aged woman.
Satchmo is a high-spirited Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier. He commands—no, he demands—your attention. Ignoring him is not an option he recognizes. But more about that later. After hearing his story, we agreed to meet him and see whether we could help find him a permanent home. Ultimately, we did. Our home.
Our other two dogs were not especially enthusiastic about this decision. They did not find Satchmo nearly as adorable as we did. To them, he was a loud, energetic stranger who had arrived with no respect for personal space, established routines or seniority. We assumed they would eventually adjust. What we did not know was that, only a few weeks after bringing Satchmo home, we were going to lose one of them.
We had Charlie from the time he was a puppy. He was a rescue who ultimately rescued us. Before Charlie, I had never had a dog of my own. I was completely unprepared for how deeply attached I would become to him. Charlie taught me about loyalty, trust and the quiet power of simply being present. Most of all, he taught me about unconditional love. I wasn’t ready to lose him. Years later, my heart still aches for him.
Charlie died unexpectedly at an animal hospital. We took our other dog, Leo, to say goodbye to his best buddy. It was one of those devastating experiences that seems to divide life into two distinct periods: the time before the loss and everything that comes after it. When I returned home, I was carrying the kind of grief that makes even walking through the front door feel difficult. Satchmo greeted me with his usual enthusiasm. Normally, he would race toward me and then continue past, swept up in the excitement of my arrival. But this time, he stopped. He rose onto his hind legs, placed a paw on each of my shoulders and pulled me toward him. Satchmo hugged me. It was one of the best hugs I have ever received. There was something different about it. He wasn’t jumping wildly or demanding that I play with him. He was still. He held on as if he understood that, in that moment, I could not carry the weight of my grief alone. Perhaps he sensed Charlie’s absence. Perhaps he smelled the hospital on me or recognized something unfamiliar in my face. Whatever the explanation, he knew I needed comfort—and he gave it to me in the only way he knew how. I am not sure how I would have made it through losing Charlie without Satchmo’s help.
That is what I mean when I say God brought him to us. His arrival only weeks before Charlie’s death felt too perfectly timed to be dismissed as coincidence. We thought we were giving an abandoned dog a home. We did not realize that he had been sent to help hold our home together when part of it was about to break. We believed we were rescuing Satchmo. In truth, he had arrived to liberate us. A few years later, he is every bit as energetic as he was when we first met him. My wife and I are his entire universe, and he seems determined never to miss a second of our lives.
He follows us from room to room, always prepared for an opportunity to make eye contact. With Satchmo, a momentary glance is not merely acknowledgment. It is an engraved invitation to come over, climb into your space and begin a personal visit. There is no such thing as casually looking in his direction. He keeps us constantly entertained. In fact, he keeps everyone entertained. To Satchmo, every visitor is an automatic playdate. Every knock at the door announces the arrival of someone who has clearly come for the sole purpose of seeing him. Guests are welcomed with the famous “Wheaten Greetin’”—an exuberant celebration involving bouncing, wiggling, spinning and enough enthusiasm to make anyone feel like a long-lost friend. When it is time for them to leave, Satchmo offers his hugs, as if personally thanking them for attending the event he believes was held in his honor.
He is part comedian, part welcoming committee, part personal trainer and part therapist. Satchmo does not enter a room quietly; he changes its atmosphere. He fills spaces with movement, mischief and joy. He reminds us to laugh, to play and to give our full attention to the people—and animals—we love. His affection is not subtle, measured or restrained. It is wholehearted.
Perhaps that is his greatest gift. We often hold back parts of ourselves. We ration our excitement, protect our emotions and wait to see whether our affection will be returned. Satchmo does none of that. He loves without hesitation. He greets each day, each visitor and each familiar face as though something wonderful has just happened. He has shown me that comfort does not always arrive quietly. Sometimes it comes racing through the house, demanding attention. Sometimes it stands on two legs, places its paws on your shoulders and refuses to let you grieve alone.
Satchmo entered our lives because someone else had decided they no longer had room for him. What they discarded became an unexpected blessing in our home. He was lost, and then he was found. But perhaps we were a little lost, too. Satchmo puts the muse in amusement, so I had to at least attempt to capture some of his sunshine in a piece of art. …maybe two, because no single image could fully contain his personality. However, creating it allowed me to celebrate the joy, comfort and laughter he has brought into our lives. The artwork is my tribute to the dog we never intended to adopt, arriving at precisely the moment we did not yet know we needed him.
We gave Satchmo a permanent home. He gave our hearts one, too.
— William Leslie
Artist • Photographer • Designer
Aquablue Images
Why is it Important to Revisit Your Previous Artwork?
I was recently looking through a gallery of some of my older artwork when one particular piece caught my eye.
For context, the work wasn’t ancient, but it wasn’t exactly recent either. Still, something about it stopped me in my tracks. I remembered creating it. I even remembered feeling proud of it at the time.
But looking at it now, I could only wonder: What was I thinking?
The piece, in a word, was awful. I could probably find several other adjectives to further set the tone, but I’m not sure that’s necessary.
There is something both amusing and humbling about realizing that a piece of artwork you once considered an accomplishment can later become a source of embarrassment. But that uncomfortable reaction is precisely why revisiting our previous work can be so valuable. The artwork may not have changed, but we have.
As I have grown older, I have matured—not only personally, but creatively. My perspective has changed. My sensibilities have become more refined. My understanding of color, composition, technique, storytelling and visual balance has evolved. I notice things now that I could not see when I originally created the work.
I am no longer the artist I used to be, nor would I want to be.
That does not mean I should be ashamed of the artist I once was. Every awkward experiment, failed composition and poorly executed idea played some part in helping me become the artist I am today. Even the work that makes me cringe contains evidence of effort, curiosity and growth.
Old artwork serves as a visual record of our creative development. It shows us where we began, what interested us and how we once interpreted the world. It also reveals the limitations we could not recognize at the time.
When we revisit our work, we are not simply judging the past. We are measuring the distance we have traveled.
Creative growth is often difficult to recognize while it is happening. It rarely announces itself. There is no single moment when we suddenly become better artists. Growth happens quietly—through repetition, observation, experimentation, disappointment and the willingness to begin again. Looking back allows us to see the accumulation of those small changes.
If an old piece now appears flawed, it may be because our eye has improved. We can recognize weaknesses that were once invisible to us. That recognition is not evidence that we failed. It is evidence that we learned.
For years, whenever I had an upcoming art showing, I would work feverishly to create something new to display. Most people attending the exhibition would have had no idea when any particular piece was created, but I instinctively believed that my newest work would also be my best work.
It rarely was.
New work is not automatically better work. Sometimes it is simply more recent. A deadline can motivate us, but it can also rush us. The urgency to prove that we are still growing can interfere with the patience required to create something meaningful.
Art does not always develop in a straight, upward line. We improve in some areas while struggling in others. We create something extraordinary, then follow it with something completely forgettable. A disappointing piece does not erase our progress, just as a successful piece does not mean we have reached our creative destination.
Revisiting earlier work can also reconnect us with ideas we abandoned too quickly. An old piece may contain an interesting color relationship, composition or concept that deserves another attempt. We may discover that the original idea was not bad at all; perhaps we simply lacked the experience or technical ability to fully realize it.
Sometimes the best response to an old piece is not rejection, but reinvention.
We can ask ourselves what we would do differently now. Would we change the composition? Simplify the background? Strengthen the contrast? Approach the subject from a more personal perspective? Those questions turn criticism into creative possibility.
It is important to express ourselves artistically in whatever form our creativity takes—painting, photography, design, writing, music or any other medium. As we grow, our creative expression should grow with us. Our work should reflect not only what we know how to do, but also who we are becoming.
We should revisit our earlier artwork with honesty, but also with compassion. The artist who created that work was doing the best they could with the vision, experience and skills they had at the time. Without that earlier version of ourselves, the artist we are today would not exist.
That being said, not every piece needs to be preserved forever.
The awful artwork that inspired this reflection has since been placed in the recycle bin, hopefully never to be thought of again. Perhaps that sounds harsh after everything I have just said, but growth also involves knowing what to carry forward and what to release.
I may have discarded the artwork, but I kept the lesson.
Sometimes our old work reminds us of where we have been. Sometimes it reveals how far we have come. And occasionally, it simply confirms that the recycle bin exists for a reason.
— William Leslie
Artist • Photographer • Designer
Aquablue Images