05/08/2026
How to become an Awe-Full Artist
with Michael Orwick
How to look for Awe and the Awe-Ha! The elements that inspire our artist journey.
Explore. Create. Share
"Full of awe" describes a profound feeling of wonder, reverence, and sometimes fear when encountering something grand, powerful, or mysterious.
When you paint from that place, your work carries a kind of presence that viewers can feel even if they can’t name it.
“Don’t look for something beautiful. Look for the moment that makes you pause.”
Artists don’t wait for awe — they cultivate it, notice it, and then translate it into form and paint. Awe isn’t just a feeling; it’s a practice of attention.
Our job is to slow down enough to notice what most people rush past. Maybe it’s the way light hits a hillside, or how the sky suddenly opens after rain. Awe is a felt experience, not a technical one. A moment that feels “worth keeping.”
Our job is to be poets, not just journalists.
To help people feel through a visual language.
One of our primary goals as poets of paint is to recognize moments of awe, describe them clearly, and translate that feeling into visual decisions (value, composition, color, atmosphere).
Image credit to Junot Díaz
