We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lawrence Oleary Jr. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lawrence below.

Lawrence, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar you earn is always exciting – it’s like the start of a new chapter and so we’d love to hear about the first time you sold or generated revenue from your creative work?

My dad and grandfather were amateur part time artist most of their lives. From a very early age my dad would paint with me at the kitchen table and my grandfather would visit and draw creative portraits in pencil. From a young child we would travel to Cape Cod for our summer vacations where I would sit for hours and watch a painter known to me as Ralf Shephard. He had a studio building in the back of his large home, which was only about ten buildings down the road from my aunts home. His genre was mostly nautical but was also commissioned to repair museum paintings. I lived in the country so there were no stores in walking distance that sold any art supplies and there were no social media sites or even internet at the time. We had a dial up phone on a party line.

My dad taught us how to reuse and recycle many things that people discard and at the time wallpaper was made out of canvas. I would travel to the local trash dump when it was closed and get discarded rolls and cut up strips of wood on my dads home made table saw for stretcher bars. He made the table saw out of used parts and ran it with an old washing machine motor.

At around 12 years old I started painting and taking classes on Saturdays at the YWCA while my dad was working fixing typewriters in Woonsocket RI.

When I was 10 years old, A neighbor who was originally from London, that I only remember as Mr. Hater in Cumberland RI knew that i painted. He asked me to paint his beer stein collections. I would take the steins home and light them in the basement and paint them. It was my greatest education an humble process of critique. I would bring them to him and he would say things like, the color is not correct or that the lighting, shadow or highlights were not what he wanted. After many hours of painting he would buy them from me. I believe that he purchased about five during that time. They were small and he paid $35.00 each for them at the time. Gas was 15 cents per gallon so you can imagine how much that was back then. It turned out the he was an art collector and eventually returned to London. I never saw him again but i would be happy to pay big money for them if I could locate him today. I was only ten years old. I also sold a painting of a covered bridge that I finished at the Saturday art classes. At ten years old I felt like a rich artist. LOL

Lawrence, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I currently work as an Artist, Actor and Musician full time, well also in my retirement age. I paint from five to six days a week when my body lets me and usually play and sing once a week either at an event or on the back of my boat art studio for the patrons of the restaurant and fellow boaters in Richmond Hill Ga. In 1997 I decided to travel the east coast of the United States and paint along the way. From simple flowers that I immortalized while painting on the side of the road to abstracts filled with colors, shapes and values from my surrounding inspirations. My main focus was to paint all of the lighthouses along the East coast. That was stopped when I hit the south and there was a cost just to enter the properties.

I was diagnosed with cancer in 2016 and by 2017 I had had major surgery only to contract a serious form of strep from the OR. I spent the next three months in hospitals and nursing homes on infusions. My guitar and sketch pad are constantly by my bedside. A year later the cancer came back with a vengeance and I had to have 38 radiation treatments. The cancer is still there but metastasizing very slowly. I have been keeping an eye on it with regular blood work, bone scans and PET scans. I do pretty good and life is a gift that is why it is called the present. I am a very optimistic person and was rather held back about telling anyone about this here but I am

hoping that others who are facing life changing disasters find strength in my story. Don’t get me

wrong, when I got the news I was a basket case. I live alone but fortunately have some wonderful friends who stood by my side and worked as my advocate in many cases. I also have an amazing service dog.

I had lost my home that I built which was also my art gallery and studio. I moved onto my boat and I have been living and traveling on it since. I am a disabled vet now and the cancer was from agent orange exposure. The government also prescribed me a service dog which is where my loving dog Kibo came into being. I seriously would not be here today if it were not for him.

I put my painting all over the internet in an effort to pay my medical bills and it really was a life saver. I am informed that the next step of possible treatments is stem cells. My research discovered that no medical coverage takes that and the cost would be over $100,000 out of pocket. I have been selling and doing commissions since then and I will be able to make that happen. 

In 2019 I was in the nursing home and my Oncologists asked me what I would like to do the most. Sarcastically I said take my boat out to sea until I run out of fuel and let God take the next step but I could not do that to my dog. He said go out on your boat but don’t go out to sea and die. Go wherever you want to. So I left to battle the element and headed south in November of 1019. The trip had its good and bad days but the bad days battling the crazy winter nor easter seas actually made me feel alive. I am well trained as a boater most of my adult life and being a 100 ton USCG master Captain, I was confident. I have been traveling and painting along the coast since then and have been in Georgia for the past four years. I really love GA and am working on a series that is short or exclusive to the area. I show in several galleries, sell to private collectors and take commissions. During my sailing south I ran into storms, seas from hell and obstacles, it made me feel alive. Then I arrived in Georgia.

Bang! The pandemic hit while I was in Savannah GA, a place called Delegal, Not having any family but a couple of friends that i had met years prior on my painting excursion there i was completely alone and the pandemic hit. My doctor informed me that If I get covid that I may not survive because of the massive radiation causing me to have a compromised immune system, and to avoid the vaccine if I can as it will trigger my system as well. I immediately became a germophobe recluse in my boat cabin alone with my dog for the next three years.

For three years I painted and played my guitar alone with not many folks around confined to my cabin and out of touch with most of the outside world. Many of my abstracts depict my emotional and passionate personality at the time.

I am a very spiritual person and did much prayer and meditation. I was a martial arts instructor and Tai Chi instructor for many years and living like a hermit was really not a bad thing. I communed with a black bird who would visit every morning. It was pretty cool. It actually communicated with me as I repeated its sounds. I constantly watched and studied many wildlife animals, plants and trees. This you will see in my upcoming series yet to be talked about.

Delegal is a locked high level community. Many of the folks are not from Georgia and live in this very expensive community. Any sailors who live aboard their boats were frowned upon by many of them and I was the only one living there on my boat. The marina management informed me that I was not welcome there because I was not one of them and I received a demand to leave. I then went to a marina called Fort McAllister Marina and those folks are beyond wonderful. My paintings are displayed in the store and many of the post cards in the area are my paintings. They can be found in the local store, art gallery and visitor center of Richmond HIll GA. The folks of this town are amazingly wonderful.

While I was in GA a fellow boater and doctor friended me and would take my blood work and send it to the VA and my Oncologist. That was such a relief for me.

After three years of isolation it was necessary for me to go back to the VA to be checked. I was a serious germ of phobe and sprayed everything including my dogs paws with sanitizer. I would not go into any public buildings or let anyone touch me or my dog. I would have my food delivered and also washed down and sprayed everything. I wore a mask all of the time like many during the pandemic.

Well, as you would expect my VA doctor demanded an in person visit in the VA hospital and after my visit I contracted covid and beat it. I am no longer a germ of phobe and have gotten it once again this

year because of my VA hospital primary care visit. I had to do this or lose future treatment. I got covid for three weeks but I am good again and have no fear. To be inspired by my friends, I meditated and stayed motivated and positive as possible. Our world is filled with negative information and news but it is our choice as to if we do or do not let it into our thoughts

to get processed as emotions. My two most important statements that I finish all of my blogs with is “As you think your world is created” Let those you love know that they are loved”

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

How society can support artists is to purchase their works, talk about what they like and what inspires them about the artist. Spread the news. However there are unscrupulous scammers out there and they are professional at hacking and scamming.

There are gate keepers in the art world that are not usually very nice people to artists. Many pay to play galleries and dealers do not treat artists right. Friends of those gate keepers please inspire them to be more art inspired instead of money hungry and controlling. I don’t let this happen to me any more, but I have seen artists be abused by such folks. Us creatives are very sensitive people. Actors have to become a character to inspire others and that can consume your emotions. I did a film once and it took me three months to recover from . It was a psychological drama and I was led in a full-length film, a puppet master.

If you hear a musician play and only one person is clapping as well, what will it hurt? One of the best honors for musicians who play dance music is for people to dance. It means more to them than pay at times.

My view on NTF’s is that it is a fad. It is also a very abused modality by hackers. I was cultivated by a NTF person who offered to buy about twenty thousand in work. She found me through Instagram’s pages. I did not know much so she (could be any hacker using a fake name) constantly cultivated me with compliments and offers to help me get started.

I watched at least fifteen videos and learned much over a three month period. I found out that a site called Open Sea had a good rating and told her that I wanted to go with them. She responded that she only buys from one site and I started to process one of my crypto investments to the site to get minted. She informed me that it would only cost 25 cents. When the site tried to take it I received a message informing me that she needed .025 of my investment which was $450.. fortunately I only had 50 dollars in it. It turned out the she (the hacker with a pleasant name) was the owner of the same site and IP address and was trying to steal my money. I was very upset and called her a scammer and thief. I stated that if she wanted to buy any of my works visit my web site and let me know which ones she wants and I will invoice her and ship it once paid. My hosting and web designer are one of the best in the country and she hacked and destroyed my web site after that.

Since then I have had several more proposals from Instagram using the same method. Do not trust these scams my fellow creatives. I will now only allow my established collectors to request NFTs

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My story or resilience has already been stated from my cancer to the pandemic however, I am hoping to find a building to buy or rent in the area of Richmond HIll Ga to build a fine art gallery, art school and center for artists to work.

I have studied metaphysics, marketing, mostly on you tube and I find that to be very helpful

There are many people out there trying to take advantage of creatives and take their hard earned money. From fake acting agencies promising stardom to hackers trying to steal your creations. Do your research and ask others in the industry. The internet is a very volatile place. Don’t give your original song writing to anyone until you register it in Washington as a copyright. I have had songs and art stolen from me. Keep your images low resolution online so if someone tries to copy it they will get pixelated. One day I received a Christmas card many years ago. The cover was one of my paintings. It came from China so there was nothing that I could do about it back then. As honoring as it was that it was good enough to be on a Christmas card it was very violating as well.

The most rewarding part of my creative process is the actual application, acting, playing and singing and painting. It is sort of an obsession of inner discovery and enlightenment. I really go with the saying that if you love what you do you never have to work a day in your life.

I love to watch people dance and sing along when I play. I love to watch the expressions and comments good and bad when they watch the results of my acting. I LOVE to watch people as they view my paintings in the gallery not knowing that I am the artist.

Contact Info:

• Website: lawrenceolearyjr.com
• Instagram: lawrenceolearyjrfineart
• Facebook: lawrenceolearyjrfineart
• Youtube: lawrenceolearyjrfineart

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