Anxiously Awaiting You

Urban Sunrise, 9 x 9″ Acrylics & Ink
“But the artist who is more interested in creating deeply than in ridding herself of anxiety will refuse to know too soon.”
- Eric Maisel
In his fascinating book, Fearless Creating, Eric Maisel talks about the necessity for the artist to invite in and deal appropriately with anxiety. While not [...]

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Your Artistic Path

Crimson Angel, 9 x 11″ Acrylic
“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”
- Joseph Campbell
How oddly reassuring.
As artists we all struggle with knowing if we’re on the right path. There are usually obstacles looming ahead of us on that path – bumps we stumble over, forks we are stymied by, hills [...]

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In Defense of Hope

Tropical Deconstruction, 6 x 6″ monoprint
“As artists our job is to keep the faith and help humankind to remember beauty and thus the promise of happiness. Our work defends hope, the most precious homeland for any soul.”
- Todd Plough
I love everything about this quote.
It says that what artists do matters. That notion may be hard [...]

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Art – It’s Not What You Think

“The thing made is a work of art made by art, but not itself art. The art remains in the artist and is the knowledge by which things are made.”
- Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy
It’s an intriguing thought to view art as not the work itself but the means by which the work is created. Art becomes [...]

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What Isn’t There…

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”
- Miles Davis
It’s all too easy to play what’s there – to take another photograph, paint a painting, write a story, compose a song, much like the ones you’ve done before. There are lots of reasons to do so – creating a consistent body of work, improving one’s [...]

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Improvement

“There isn’t any method of improvement inherent in abstract painting. There is no challenge.”
- Daniel E. Greene
As you might expect, I don’t agree at all with the sentiment expressed above. I find it interesting that a prominent artist would make such a statement – Daniel Greene is one of the most respected portrait artists out [...]

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This has been bugging me…

“Specialization is for insects.”
- Robert Anson Heinlein
I’ll admit it, I’ve got an art problem.
My art-making interest far exceeds my capacity to make art. It’s mostly a lack of time – I have a full time job, not to mention two teenagers, a couple of mothers to care for – you get the picture.
But I’m the [...]

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The Gift

“Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still.”
- Rumi
I am aware that as an artist I have been given a great gift for which I am profoundly grateful. The world around me has become animated and alive in a way for which [...]

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