I’ve known, since I was a kid, that I needed to—that I was made to—work and create with my hands. I’d observe any form of creative expression I could, back in 1970's and 1980's--cook; bake; craft; paint; or build--and then try to do everything I reasonably could, myself. My dad would sometimes take me to construction sites, to pick through the debris: looking for useful pieces of wood to add to the on-going project of different shapes and pieces that consumed our back patio. Driving away, I'd lament how--rather than heading home-I wanted to stay behind to help the crew build something. Passing by a semitruck, with a load of timber on its trailer, my older brother would routinely ask, “Darren. What would you build with that?” As a teen, when I walked past a neighbor who was welding in the driveway, I asserted to myself--I'm going to be a welder someday. When we'd go by the local crafts supply place--Crafts Etc.–we rarely bought anything, but I would walk the aisles and plan in my head the creative projects I would one-day complete. I was always dreaming of being creative. But by the late 1980’ and 90’s, the trades, crafts and construction were no longer “proper paths” for those hoping to move up the social ladder. 1980's or 1880's--I guess the timeframe doesn't necessarily matter. We're almost all taught to ignore our instinct and become who we are supposed to be, rather than remain who we already know we are. I was to find a career. Enter college. 

Darren having a much needed dinner with his wife, Tatiana.

As owner and operator of Houston Honey Do, Darren has provided home-repair services in the greater Houston area since 2006.

Our parents couldn’t afford an education for my brother or I, but getting a degree was supposed to be the answer to, well, everything. 8 years of higher-education, spread over a 12 year span (via much struggle and hard work), with four degrees to mark my progress–-the last of which, an MBA in 2003–-would be the accomplishments that would ensure my place in the landscape of working American. Money and happiness were on the horizon.  

And yet, though I very much value my formal education--through specific circumstances and life--I realized that I didn't fit, not in their construct at least. Over several iterations, industries and paths, I leapt forward and fell back and went sideways for quite a few years--accepting a place in the world, while always mourning that it wasn’t MY place. I was a businessman and a professional for sure; but more deeply, I was a maker; a craftsman; an artist; a creative; independent but a generalist trapped in a specialized, and eventually "corporatized" world--weighing and passing judgement upon myself by other's values, paths and expectations.  

I couldn't keep playing this game, towing the line. How do I BE creative? Where does that belong? 

Here: d.p.Etlinger Fine Art.