JoeyEmbers.org

Vote here: https://peoplesartist.org/2026/joey-embers

I have spent most of my life arguing with a voice only I can hear.

The one that asks...

"Is this worth it?"

"Are you good enough?"

"Does any of this matter?"

Years ago, I painted this reproduction of Caravaggio's *The Incredulity of Saint Thomas.*

A painting about doubt.

But the longer I've lived with doubt, the more I realize we misunderstand it.

Doubt isn't proof that you should stop.

Sometimes doubt appears because you are standing at the edge of something that matters.

Every artist knows this conversation.

The unfinished painting.

The idea that won't leave.

The dream that makes absolutely no practical sense, but keeps finding its way back into your life.

For more than twenty years I've been showing up to the canvas without knowing where it would lead.

Between work.
Family.
Late nights.
Life.

The canvas never promised anything in return.

It only asked whether I had enough faith to come back tomorrow.

This week feels strangely familiar.

I'm currently sitting in 6th place in The People's Artist competition.

Only the Top 5 move forward after Thursday.

I'm standing at the edge again.

And this time, the story continues because of the people who believe enough to reach forward with me.

If my art, my story, or this journey has connected with you, I would be grateful for your vote and your share.

Thank you for helping this little world of colored mud keep growing.

The canvas never promises anything in return.

Not success.

Not clarity.

Not even the satisfaction of knowing where you're headed.

Yet there comes a moment when the brush is in your hand and hesitation no longer serves a purpose.

You either make the mark or you don't.

The strange thing is that life seems to work the same way.

We spend so much energy wanting certainty before we begin. We want guarantees. We want proof that the effort will be worth it. We want to know how the story ends before we're willing to write the next sentence.

But the most meaningful things I've experienced have never arrived that way.

A painting unfolds through participation.

One brushstroke reveals the next.

One question reveals another.

What looked like doubt becomes curiosity.

What felt like fear becomes movement.

The path appears because you walk it.

The older I get, the more I suspect that creativity is not an act of confidence.

It is an act of faith.

Not faith that everything will work out.

Faith that the act itself is worthwhile.

That in the end, you make the mark.

You sing the song.

You write the story.

You dance like no one is watching.

Not because you know where it will lead.

But because something inside you knows it is time to begin.

If this resonates with you, I'd be grateful if you shared it.

And if you'd like to support my work and help me continue the journey:

https://peoplesartist.org/2026/joey-embers

https://www.joeyembers.org/the-peoples-artist-joey-embers.html

My cubicle at work has slowly become a staging area for paintings.

Finished pieces leaning against filing cabinets. Half-finished ideas resting beside cables, notes, and the everyday mechanics of keeping systems running.

At some point I stopped trying to separate those worlds.

For more than twenty years I’ve balanced a full-time career while continuing to paint and develop long-term projects quietly in the background. Along the way, people and communities made space for those parts of my life to coexist instead of forcing them into opposition. Looking back now, I realize how much of a difference that actually made.

Art is a catalyst.

Not because it allows people to escape reality, but because it helps people reorient themselves within it.

Back in 2012, I completed a two-week residency at Red Barn Studio in Lindsborg, Kansas, shortly before receiving a three-year studio subsidy through the NOTO Arts District in Topeka. Experiences like those reinforced something I’ve come to believe deeply: when communities intentionally create space for creativity, the effects ripple outward far beyond the artists themselves.

Art changes how people experience places.
It changes conversations.
It changes what communities believe is possible.

The older I get, the more interested I become in the ecosystems surrounding creative work rather than the mythology surrounding artists themselves.

Most artists I know are building meaningful work in the middle of ordinary life — raising kids, working jobs, helping communities function, struggling with time and energy, and still somehow continuing to create anyway.

That feels worth acknowledging.

Because behind almost every artist is an ecosystem of support that often goes unnoticed — communities, institutions, organizations, friends, families, and people willing to make space for creativity to exist.

Sometimes something as simple as allowing a person to bring more of themselves into the spaces where they work can make all the difference in whether creativity survives long term.

Maybe that’s the real work.

https://www.joeyembers.org/the-peoples-artist-joey-embers.html

https://peoplesartist.org/2026/joey-embers

I think I accidentally became an artist while trying to find my path through places that never appeared on any map.

Sitting on the floor of a library surrounded by books I was probably too young to fully understand.
Long bus rides with smashed peanut butter sandwiches.
Pilgrimages to the Nelson-Atkins Museum.
Endless trips to the public library.
Stumbling across art shows at local colleges and unexpected places.
Coffee shops full of conversations.
Tiny galleries held together by stubborn people who believed creativity mattered even when nobody was paying attention.

At the time none of it felt important.

It just felt like life unfolding one strange room at a time.

Looking back now, I realize I grew up inside a living system of community support for the arts. Not the large institutional kind people usually talk about, but something smaller and more human. Teachers staying late. Librarians handing somebody the right book at the right moment. Artists encouraging younger artists before they fully understood what they were becoming.

And then something strange happens.

People carry that forward.

I think a lot of my work emerged from those environments long before I ever put paint on canvas. The attention. The curiosity. The observation. The loneliness. The feeling of wandering through uncertainty while slowly realizing maybe the wandering itself was shaping you.

That is probably what “Finding My Path” was always about.

Not arriving somewhere.

Learning how to keep moving.

Finding My Path:
https://www.joeyembers.org/finding-my-path.html

People’s Artist page:
https://peoplesartist.org/2026/joey-embers