110 Who we are
In 1981 my friend Joe Hebert invited me to join him in an ascent of Devil’s Bedstead, a prominent peak in the Sawtooth Mountain range in Southern Idaho. T...
Category: philosophy
140: No one dies
During a studio open house I conversed with a surgeon and mentioned that a medical illustrator–a former surgeon–told me that creating medical illustrations took...
130 Art both rich and strange
LIKE MANY artists I occasionally listen to videos as I work. Some of my habitual favorites are TED talks. TED (short for Technology, Education, and Design)...
163 Why collect art?
The deadline for my ad for the Door County Plein Air Festival booklet is at hand. Once again I feel inadequate to describe why potential collectors should ...
161 Frictionless creation
There is a concept circulating that suggests the main goal of the digital revolution is to reduce obstacles to creativity. This means eliminating barriers so al...
159 High sensitivity
Many artists have been plagued by high sensitivity including Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo Da Vinci. As mentioned in a previous blog I was diagnosed w...
151 Art synthesis
According to the German philosopher Georg Hegel the intellectual process involves thesis (an original idea), antithesis (an opposing idea), and synthe...
187 The Virtues of Chaos
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.–T. S. Eliot I st...
181: Five reasons to collect art
YOU BELIEVE IN AUTHENTICITY When people enter a well furnished room and see a fabulous painting they want to get closer. Such magnetism is a powerful emoti...
207: The next best step
Cliff Shadows, 9″ x 11″, 8 color woodcut WRITING a journal helps you keep track of goals you have made. Although I keep a journal I’ve le...
206: How to improve
Summer Light, 11″ x 11″, 8 block woodcut When reflecting on how to improve in the coming year we might come up with the usual ideas: practice and st...
205: Practice deliberately
When research psychologist Anders Ericson was young he played chess competitively with classmates. One day he played against a boy he had beaten decisively in e...
204: The Artist’s Mark
If we envision a continuum with the artist’s physical presence on one end and manufactured objects on the other where does a work of art fall on that spec...
197: Trials precede transformation
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy–for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves–we must die to one life before we enter another.&nb...
196: Finding your style
This week I’m getting ready for for two shows–an abstract show that will be the largest exhibit of my work to date–and a one night landscape show tha...
189: The power of dreams
One night I had a dream. And the dream changed me.Like most artists I have drawn since I was young. My earliest dream was to be an artist although I had no idea...