The fast-paced, no-holds-barred lifestyle was fun while it lasted, but after two years, Darrell was ready to downshift the pace and concentrate on art in earnest. Solution: a move 90 miles east to Beaumont - where new adventures in art loomed. The city's lively arts community, as well as it's thriving charitable citizenry - welcomed Darrell with open arms, checkbooks and requests for donations of his works to benefit numerous goodwill causes. "Something I feel so strongly about is helping others, benefiting worthy causes, through my art," he says. "Of course it's gratifying when a private collector wants to purchase and display my art - but nothing compares to knowing that through the sale of one of my pieces at a charitable function, someone I'll never know will benefit in some small way."

Darrell draws inspiration from many sources - some of the more important ones are close friends who lost their battle with AIDS. "Through my art, I honor those friends whose lives were cut short," he says. "I think about them all the time and most of my paintings have something to do with at least one or more of them." Music is another inspiring and uplifting muse, he adds. "It's amazing what the soul will create when inspired by music," he says. One source of inspiration came out of left field in the mid 1990's 1994,95, and 96 school year, when the principal of High Island High School contacted Darrell and asked if he'd be interested in teaching art to teens at the tiny beach community's school. "The hidden joy of my life," Darrell describes his three-year teaching stint.