Browsing: Letters

Letters
0 Special people

Dear Artist, Sarah Sibley of Rattlesden, Suffolk, UK wrote yesterday and asked, “I was just wondering if you consider yourself and other artists ‘special’ compared to everyone else. I’m sixteen years old and coming to grips with being an artistic…

Letters
0 Particularities

Dear Artist, My late friend Bert Oudendag used to open his oil tubes from their back-ends, squeeze the contents onto a steel tabouret and carefully fold in 50% by volume of stand oil, a small amount of copal varnish and…

Letters
0 Restocking

Dear Artist, We’ve let loose the bowline and we’re drifting. There’s a skin of ice here and there on this tame little river near where we live. I’m wearing gloves. I’m using the paints we left in the box after…

Letters
0 On your knees

Dear Artist, What surprised me after the last letter, as well as the valuable tips and systems sent in, were the number of artists who wrote to say that a studio was not all that important. It seems there’s a…

Letters
0 Studio tips

Dear Artist, Sandy Triolo of Silver Spring, Maryland, wrote to say, “I’m in the process of planning a studio to be attached to my new home. I’m checking on what to build; either one of those glazed patio enclosures that…

Letters
0 Looking inward

Dear Artist, Today I crawled back into my space. After the hyper energy of the outer world, the East, pushing and shoving, sights seen, gifts collected, philosophies touched. This room, this untidy room, now tidy from my absence, the home…

Letters
0 Hong Kong

Dear Artist, I’m creaking up Victoria Hill on the peak tram — it used to be the longest funicular in the British Empire. Serious commuters look nowhere as they are angled out of the confusion and into the sky. Tourists…

Letters
0 The Chao Phraya River

Dear Artist, I love rivers. You can dream on rivers. Subject matter comes to you. They’re an ever-flowing muse. The Chao Phraya River is the ancient lifeline of Thailand. Rising in the mountains of the north, it passes through the…

Letters
0 Enlightenment

Dear Artist, Right now painting is a difficult business. Here in Thailand there’s too much richness, too much jostling, too much confusion. I’m not angry. I’m just frustrated. Buddha says we attempt to run our lives through a veil of…

Letters
0 My Little Spirit

Dear Artist, Near Chiang Mai there’s an important temple known as Doi Suthep. It’s reached from a mountain highway and a funicular which rises several hundred meters to the level of the temple. Here, near the top of a golden…

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