How to build readers with art.

Shout out! - Howard Lyon: Art's impact

From Howard Lyon: For me, art is the pursuit of something beautiful. It is taking raw materials and time and putting them together to transform the mundane into something extraordinary. I am always in awe in a museum or a friend's studio when I see the end result of years of training and focus come together in one beautiful work of art.

I love the thought that after an artist finishes creating something there is more beauty in the world. It is almost as if they are able to counter entropy. They bring an order to the chaos of materials and reorganize them into something that represents a moment of what it means to be human.

I am also struck by how it seems like a painting is both a collection of time, but slows down time. You are able to look at a painting and in one moment take in the effort of hours or days in that single instant. You have that impression with you forever. But then that single moment, frozen in paint and goes with you for many years and takes on new meaning as you bring new experiences to it. It is as if each time you see it, you see it through different eyes because you have changed as a person from one moment to the next. Paintings that didn't resonate with me at first might later in life as I have felt more, experienced more.

Howard Lyon is one of my favorite artists of all time. You may know him for the spectacular art he has created for Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, David Farland, Dungeons and Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, Magic the Gathering, and other fantasy works. But my favorites are his religious works. Their beauty literally warms your soul. Check out his work for yourself at www.howardlyon.com.