I have spent the past forty years learning, experimenting, creating, exploring and crafting.  Forty years of ingesting a constant bombardment of imagery and sound.  While turning forty is just a symbolic moment, I have chosen to take everything I’ve done and turn it around.  I will not keep my work private.  I will not censor myself.  I will not take ‘no’ for an answer.  This is the moment where I take my reality and make it visionary.

I don’t look at life the same way you do.  I don’t expect you to.  I think at a million miles an hour, in vibrant colors, melodic sounds and non-stop imagery.  From this moment onward, I gladly invite you into my world by opening the doors to everything I see, hear and feel.

I am about to build worlds before your eyes that may forever change you.  I hope they do.

I was once told I was ‘a jack of all trades and a master of none.’  While admittedly true, I find no fault in that assessment.  In fact, I embrace it.

If you focus on just one thing, you can perfect it, but this is narrow perfection.  What I find more interesting is how a diverse body of influence can merge together.  I enjoy the ability to think beyond that proverbial box and introduce unrelated influences to an artistic creation.  This is the path I follow.

If my eyes were blind, I would create music.  If my ears were deaf, I would paint the universe.  If my limbs were numb to the world, I would speak words as a poet.  I would do this every day of my life.  If you took away my ability to create, in any shape or form, you’ve taken away the very essence of who I am.

If you think you know me, think again.  You have only seen the tip of this iceberg.  I am about to make this world much more interesting.

I do all of this to ensure a legacy.  In the distant future when I am dead and buried, the brilliance of my ideas and the vibrance of my imagination must be preserved.

To everyone who reads this, live out loud and never be afraid.  Don’t expect anything of the future, just enjoy the unfolding process of the present.

My name is Jonas Stoltz and I am a father, a husband, a filmmaker, an artist, a freethinker and a rebel.  Above all, I am alive.  And nobody will take that away from me.

(Written September 1, 2010)