Transcending the Mundane With Art

Mystic Hills of Vieques, PR

Art and story by Michael Hooper

When you find yourself doing the same, dull thing day after day, you probably need to shake things up. Art can make a routine encounter interesting. I often find myself doing the same bicycle ride to the Sunken Gardens at Gage Park. Next time, I arrived with art supplies and painted its colorful flowers, stone walk and pond.

I love gardens. I painted a vase of flowers at the Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, where I met a bohemian from San Francisco. Years later, we still text each other once a week. 

Sitting on a hillside, I was drawing and painting the mystic hills above Esperanza, Vieques, PR. The view captured my soul, beauty never felt so good.

In the woods of northern Minnesota, I was sitting on a road, drawing and painting the light against the forest.

Water Cress Lane, Ponto Lake, MN

These are the moments that no matter what the outcome, the journey of connecting with nature is the reward, a memory worth documenting in art. Through the act of creation we transcend the mundane, elevating our authenticity, climbing to a higher level of productivity, a place where angels sing. Pavel Noga drew a picture of cats and people eating pizza in a park in Barcelona, in my diary; the drawing brings back that delightful night we conducted an art show with our collections of postcards, slept in the park and shared breakfast in the morning. 

When I seriously began studying oil painting in 2019, I studied the nine levels of value from light to dark. I progressed slowly. I embraced a thought from David Bowie, "If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area."  He advised artists to "always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in. When you don't feel your feet touching the bottom, that is exactly where you can produce something exciting." I feel there is a lot of truth in Bowie's words. I challenge myself to get better with each painting.

In 2024 I took an oil painting class with Barbara Waterman-Peters. I enjoyed learning how the finest painters in history used oil to paint their masterpieces. 

Barbara taught me how to reduce my palette to the essentials, including a dark yellow, a bright yellow, a dark red, a bright red and a dark blue and a light blue, along with titanium white, which we should use only sparingly. We painted in this grayscale, the underpainting, then added color, It was so educational and useful to train the eye to look for values and develop representational paintings of real objects, bowls, coffee cups and a cow's skull.

I learned to sit close to the subject and draw without the aide of photographs, trusting my eyes to see the composition. I love real life, I want to bring it alive with the same exhilaration that I feel in front of my subject, I immerse myself into this special moment: I sit next to the Seine in Paris and paint the river passing by. It is such a thrill, I cried, painting the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris.

I spend a lot of time mixing paint and preparing the brush for a specific brush stroke, making sure I get the right value and applying that stroke with deliberate care and accuracy, and then leaving it alone and moving onto the next brush stroke. 

Under Barbara Waterman-Peters, I studied John Singer Sargent and fell in love with his work and style and feel he is worthy of emulating his portrait work, landscapes, and watercolors.

More than anything I have loved the magnificent extravagance in painting at all these beautiful places, including the Flint Hills of Kansas. I make some connection to nature as I set up easel, chair and painting supplies and work for two hours looking at a field of grass with hills in the background while a hummingbird checks me out. 

I felt that connection to nature recently as I painted on a hill near my home in Vieques, PR.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, co-founder of the Transcendentalism movement in the 1800s in Concord, Mass., believed nature is a living symbol of the human mind and a gateway to spiritual truth.

I may be done painting the following painting, but I still feel connected to the place. It's high on a hill, overlooking the ocean, small town and horses on the trail. It feels like a gateway to a mystic land.

Horses on the Trail, Vieques, PR

A view of Esperanza, Vieques, PR

Bitcoin's Electricity Dilemma

Bitcoin miners

By Michael Hooper

I was an early believer in bitcoin. I started buying bitcoin when it was about $1000 per coin. Then I started mining bitcoin in summer 2017 with my son Reid.

We were earning about $4000 worth of bitcoin per month with about $640 worth of electricity, which powered four Antminer S9 15.5TH/s. At the time, these Antminer S9s were top of the line miners but are considered outdated today. Each machine required 220-volt power. I was so excited to be making money, about $135 a day, running these miners inside a room in my garage. I had an air conditioning unit in there to keep the place cool and I had special ear protection because the miners were extremely loud. And I have sensitive ears.

Then halving occurred in May 2018. Our profits were cut down substantially and the price of bitcoin had fallen from a high of $20,000 in December 2017 to around $7000 per coin. Plus more people got into mining, thus reducing the amount paid out to miners. Essentially I was breaking even in the business, I spent $640 a month in electricity and I earned about $640 a month in bitcoin. I decided to shut down the mining business, partly because of the amount of electricity that I was consuming. I was consuming enough energy to power six houses; that is a staggering amount of electricity going through just four machines. As you can imagine, global consumption of electricity for bitcoin mining grew substantially over the next nine years, creating a huge dilemma for bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $78,300, down from a high of $126,198.07 on October 6, 2025.

Today bitcoin's global electricity consumption is estimated between 155 to 204 Terawatt-hours (TWh) annually. This power draw is roughly equivalent to the annual energy consumption of mid-sized nations like Pakistan, Poland or Switzerland, according to crypto.com.

The consumption of energy is driven by bitcoin’s proof-of-work mechanism. The miners essentially verify transactions on the block chain.

Some large-scale mining companies have converted their electricity use to renewable sources, including wind power and solar power to save money and to save the planet. Some experts estimate that about 50% of the power used by these miners comes from renewable sources.

Technically, bitcoin miners could reduce the number of miners substantially; a lower number of miners reduces the overall cost to conduct proof-of-work on the network, but a lower number of miners would make the network slower, the difficulty would drop and make it easier for the remaining miners to add a new block of transactions to the blockchain.

There is only going to be 21 million bitcoin. This number creates scarcity because bitcoin is owned by people all over the world. Bitcoin is a world market. Currently there are about 20 million bitcoin in circulation. But experts estimate that up to 3 million to 4 million bitcoin in circulation may be permanently lost due to lost passwords or discarded hardware. You may have heard about the bitcoin millionaire whose girlfriend threw away his computer, which ended in a dump, and the computer was never found. Many tears have been shed over lost bitcoin. Personally I never lost any bitcoin because I have kept my crypto in secure wallets.

Experts estimate that bitcoin will be mined for another 114 years, with the last bitcoin mined around the year 2140.

Roughly every four years or every 210,000 blocks of transactions, the reward miners receive for validating transactions is cut in half. This is what happened to me in May 2018 when my reward for mining was cut in half. The most recent halving occurred in April 2024, and the next event is projected to happen in 2028.

After all bitcoin has been distributed, miners will still have incentive to continue mining because they will receive fees paid by users for validating transactions.

Some critics believe that bitcoin has no future because electricity will become too scarce and force the miners to quit mining. This could happen. A country or state could outlaw mining to conserve energy.

I expect the last remaining miners to convert to 90% to 100% renewable energy, using their own wind power and solar power to generate electricity. Bitcoin's electricity dilemma is real, but I believe technology will solve this problem and bitcoin mining will continue indefinitely.

The Transcendence of Gary Woodland

Gary Woodland  Photo courtesy of PGA Tour

By Michael Hooper

Gary Woodland, who grew up in Topeka, recently won again on the PGA Tour after struggling to rebuild his career after brain cancer surgery.

In an emotional interview after he won The Houston Open on March 29, 2026, Woodland acknowledged it’s been a long road back to victory. 

“We play an individual sport out here, (but) I wasn't alone today... I've got a lot of people behind me — my team, family, this golf world," Woodland said on NBC-TV. "Anybody that is struggling with something, I hope they see me and don’t give up. Just keep fighting.”

The victory was his fifth of his career and earned him a trip to the Masters in April. He played pretty well in the Masters, he made the cut and finished tied for 14th. In his fourth round he shot a stellar six under 66. This round probably meant a lot to him because Woodland sometimes faltered on the weekend, but instead he finished strong. 

The greatest moment in his career was winning the US Open at Pebble Beach by three shots in June 2019. I remember watching this because I was in Vieques, Puerto Rico, at the time and I had to go to the Lazy Jack's bar to watch the golf tournament because there was nothing on television at my hotel. The bartender was kind enough to change the channel on one of its televisions so that I could see Woodland win his first major.

After that, Woodland's career started to slide and he fell to 142nd in the Official Golf World Ranking in 2022. Then in August 2023 he announced his brain tumor diagnosis. In September 2023 he underwent brain surgery that removed part of the tumor.

Woodland returned to action on the PGA Tour in January 2024, but he struggled the entire year to post a top 10 finish, finally reaching it at the Shriners Children’s Open in October 2024. But by January 2025 he had fallen out of the top 200. Then earlier this year he announced he’s been suffering from PTSD.

Through it all, Woodland continued to work hard. His trainers helped him, his coaches helped him and his caddy, Brennan "Butchie" Little, stayed with him. Most important, his family stayed with him, his wife, Gabby, and their three children, and of course, his parents, Dan and Linda Woodland of Topeka, all supported Woodland through his health struggles.

Woodland missed the cut a few times this year but tied for 14th in the Valspar Championship on March 22.  He placed eighth in the RBC Heritage on April 19. Woodland finished his final round in the RBC Heritage with a stunning eagle 2 on the par-4 18th hole, holing out from 204 yards.

Woodland tied for 38th in the Cadillac Championship May 3. He played great in his first two rounds in the Cadillac Championship, with scores of 68 and 69, which left him in the top 10 but his third round 77 was pretty bad. Yet he redeemed himself on Sunday with a final round 70.

Woodland's swing is a compact 3/4 swing, with a moderately slow take back, which helps him build up energy, then he comes down through the ball with tremendous speed and power, driving the ball over 300 yards. He is one of the longest drivers of the ball on the PGA tour. He stays down through the swing long enough to keep the ball going straight. He remains flexible even though he will be 42 years old on May 21. 

Woodland attended Shawnee Heights High School and became a four-year letterman in both basketball and golf. As a senior, he became the first All State basketball player at Shawnee Heights averaging 18 points per game for the season including 26 points in the state title match. Woodland attended Washburn University on a basketball scholarship, but left after his freshman year to attend the University of Kansas in Lawrence on a golf scholarship. He decided to switch to golf because he felt he wasn’t fast enough for basketball.

In February 2025, Woodland was awarded the PGA Tour Courage Award in recognition of his recovery from surgery. The surgery did not fully remove his brain tumor and the residual tumor sits near his amygdala, which controls his emotions. Woodland said that during the second round of the 2026 Houston Open, he battled the last 10 holes, thinking people were trying to kill him.

When going through a crisis, it is hard to keep your head up. The people who are able to carry on and rebuild their life back to what it was and even go a step further, reaching the winner's circle, have reached a state of transcendence. They have transcended their pain and agony and turned it into something good, something beautiful. This is the transcendence of Gary Woodland.

Whenever you see Woodland on TV, you might notice he's wearing a shirt with a Security Benefit logo. Security Benefit, a longtime Topeka insurance and retirement company, began its partnership with Woodland in 2020 and has continued to support him through his recovery from brain surgery and return to the PGA Tour.

Woodland is one of the most popular golfers on the PGA Tour, he’s highly respected by his peers and he has a lot of fans around the country.

Topeka should be proud that one of its own has reached such tremendous heights.

Writer's note: One of the reasons I wrote this story is because I miss the writing of Brent Maycock, former sports writer of The Topeka Capital-Journal, who wrote extensively about Gary Woodland on the PGA Tour. One year Maycock went to the Masters to cover him and won the press lottery to play the Master's course on the Monday following the tournament. I don't think Maycock broke 100 but he got to play on one of the greatest golf courses of all time.