The First Word Is the Hardest — The Story Behind "The Old Man"
There is a vintage Remington Noiseless typewriter in my office.
It is the same model Ernest Hemingway used when he wrote The Old Man and the Sea. I know this because I own one — a real one, sitting on my desk alongside an old rotary phone that has no business being in the twenty-first century. Both of them ended up in my work, eventually.
But this piece started with the typewriter and a question I kept asking myself: why is the first word always the hardest?
I photographed the Remington with a blank page loaded and ready. Then I painted over the image with a deep blue wash — part ocean, part open sky, part the particular feeling of sitting in front of something that could become anything.
The blank page in the artwork is not empty. It is waiting.
The blue is not melancholy. It is possibility held in suspension — that charged moment just before something begins.
I called it The Old Man as a quiet nod to Hemingway, but the piece is not really about him. It is about anyone who has a story inside them and has not yet typed the first word. A writer. A dreamer. Someone starting a business, a chapter, a new life.
Every great novel, every important idea, every meaningful change began with a single decision to begin.
Your story is waiting. All you need is the first word.
Bring The Old Man Into Your Space
Available as canvas, framed canvas and art print options.