It is a great happiness when men’s professions and their inclinations accord. — Francis Bacon Over 41 million Americans work as freelancers, according to Forbes, and despite a booming job market—the best in five decades—most want to stay put. In a recent survey, 82% of fulltime freelancers said...
Like the members a '60s reunion band, 50 protestors gathered in Manhattan's Columbus Square last week for the "Ruins of Modernity Tour." The event—meant to be a raucous gallery tour at the Museum of Modern Art—was the fourth of 10 planned protests against MoMA, whose donors...
The work of art provides us with new organs with which to see the world. — Maurice Merleau-Ponty We understand the world thanks to the nonfungible mental tokens we call "ideas." Ideas bridge internal and external reality and allow us to say, "Yes, I get it, I understand." But—unless...
British artist Damien Hirst is hawking 10,000 nonfungible tokens (NFTs), each redeemable for one of his cherry blossom prints, according to The New York Times. “NFTs are the most exciting new thing in the creative industry,” Hirst told the paper. “The fact that they polarize people so...
The true use of art is to cultivate the artist’s own spiritual nature. — George Inness The 19th century American art movement known as Tonalism celebrated gentle tones, soft edges, atmosphere, and “the reality of the unseen.” Americans fell in love with it in the aftermath of the Civil...
Every canvas is a journey all its own. — Helen Frankenthaler Wanderlust is gripping my friends and family, as July 4th approaches. They're planning tourist itineraries, reserving summer rentals, buying RVs, and booking flights. While they've been locked down for 12 months, I've completed more than 100 journeys, thanks...
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful. — Michelangelo A particularly pappy talk show I watched yesterday featured a segment entitled "Minute Masterclass," prompting me to wonder: Why do so many broadcasters and web-content producers think we expect...
Mistakes are the portals of discovery. — James Joyce In a painting class this week, I confessed to "wiping" a lousy still life, an admission that triggered a 15-minute discussion of the upside of mistakes. "Wiping a painting is a badge of honor," the teacher said. "It's also...
A perceptual approach to painting is not synonymous with rote observation. — Matthew Ballou "Perceptual painters," artist Matthew Ballou says, dwell on two surfaces at once: the surface of the object and the surface of the canvas. The artist daubs paint on one surface (the canvas) in order...
Painting a "picture" is meaningless. One paints beauty. — David Leffel In perhaps my favorite semester of college, I took a philosophy course on beauty. Philosophers call the study of beauty "aesthetics" and for 2,500 years have argued over aesthetics questions like "does a painting actually exist?" and...