I'm rereading Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence and am struck by the scene in which the narrator begs Charles Strickland to explain himself. Why has the stockbroker abandoned his wife and children for la vie de bohème? "Do you mean to say you didn't leave your...
Though a living cannot be made from art, art makes life worth living. — John Sloan John Sloan was starving when he said what he said, so you have to forgive him. It is possible to make a living from art—and a decent one, at that. I...
No second-act artist more captivates me than the late still-life painter Robert M. Kulicke. His is a Horatio Alger story...
Realist painter Robert Henri called the communion of connoisseurs "The Brotherhood." The Thought Police would insist we re-label that "mystical bond," but let's allow Henri to slide. What he had to say is too important to get hung up over one Victorian-era word. According to Henri, The...
Hollywood loves artists because they're observant, flawed, eccentric and vulnerable—qualities a main character must have to win over the audience. Artists also allow directors to smuggle scores of "beauty shots" into their films. Always a plus. Here's my list of the dozen top films depicting artists (in chronological order)....
Most artists trust their intuition. Sometimes it leads you to make mistakes, but that hardly matters. There is no such thing as failure, you just learn from it and go on. — David Hockney One advantage of oil painting resides in the medium's "forgiving" nature. You can wipe...
My artist statement takes over 300 words to describe what I hope to capture in my oil paintings. What I wish to capture, in as few words as possible, is average everydayness. The term—a favorite of mine—comes from philosopher Martin Heidegger's colossal book Being and Time. Average everydayness...
Twenty years ago, I attended a lecture by the renowned architect Frank Gehry. Meek and plain-speaking—like most Canadians—Gehry described his signature design process: "First, you get the building right. Then, you make it weird." Gehry meant a building must be structurally sound and functional first; a Gehry...
I invite you to grab your sweetheart, don your mask and come see my exhibit of original oil paintings for sale at the Center for the Creative Arts' Annual Artisan Show, next Saturday, November 21, and Sunday, November 22. At the event—a weekend marketplace for fine...
Art speaks to everyone, but some people don't listen. ― C. Vallo I'm a fortunate son. As a kid, living only eight miles outside Manhattan, I had the chance early in life to experience art in a global art center—indeed, the global art center in the day. My parents many...