Dear Artist, You may remember a few weeks ago I wrote about a senior artist, E. J. Hughes, not attending a major retrospective of his paintings. Lately I’ve been reading an excellent transcript by Ian Thom of the correspondence that…
Dear Artist, Last week, the most frequent questions jingling my inbox concerned artist’s websites. Fact is, most of them don’t work very well and artists often don’t know why. Some of course contain art that is substandard and any amount…
Dear Artist, An epidemic of journaling and scrap-booking is threatening to overtake stamp collecting as a private and not so private pastime. Many of these are of the “I’m having a nice day” variety, or include the “I don’t know…
Dear Artist, Apart from the fact that it was always a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, Fred Rogers taught us a lot of subtle and valuable lessons. His place was generally tidy. He got ready for what he was going…
Dear Artist, If you’re going swimming, you’re better off if you swim with a friend. So goes the theory. Folks who get together and paint on Thursday mornings know what I’m talking about. There’s something to be said for collective…
Dear Artist, Recently, I’ve had my knuckles thoroughly rapped for recommending one of my favourite creative acts — burning bothersome paintings. Environmentalists have pointed out that it’s not only anti-social, in some places it’s illegal. Chastened, I’m now turning your…
Dear Artist, In the last letter, the vision of Galen Rowell reminded me of a worthwhile exercise. It’s for “toning up” the creative spirit. To make it happen you need a fresh roll of film in your camera, twenty minutes,…
Dear Artist, Photographers, unencumbered by a thousand years of process, have shone their light onto new levels of pictorial creativity. Good examples are Galen Rowell and his wife Barbara. Through countless adventure-photography assignments to the Rockies, Tibet, Patagonia, Galapagos, Antarctica…
Dear Artist, Thirty of our local artists got together and put on an Erotic Art Show. They rented an extensive second-floor space, lined up the local media and threw an opening. Apparently the place was jammed. I missed the bacchanalian…
Dear Artist, After a day of one-on-one artist mentoring last Saturday, I realized that so many of us are asking the question, “What should I do with my life?” As I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure this one out…