Yearly Archives: 2020

Letters Wunderbild, 2018 Acrylic on draped canvas by Katharina Grosse (b.1961)
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Recently, a young artist who is self-taught and self-employed asked if I might help with a letter of recommendation for grad school. Knowing her work and self-starter style, I agreed and asked her to draft the letter herself, in order to feature the details she thought would be most helpful. She replied with a list of bullet points about what drew her to the school’s program, her artistic aspirations and a mostly completed letter draft. She also sent me an updated CV listing the eight shows she’s participated in since graduating from university in 2017.

Letters The Runaway (1958) photograph (left) oil painting (right) 35 x 33 inches by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)
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Norman Rockwell never called himself an artist. When I met him in his studio some years ago, he made it clear to me that he was an “illustrator.” I told him I loved cruising his paintings up close because his surfaces were so interesting, and that made him a “painter.” He told me he didn’t think painter was a bad word.

Letters Tips For Artists Who Want To Sell, 1966-68 acrylic on canvas 68 1/4 x 56 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches by John Baldessari (1931-2020)
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In 1970, John Baldessari was teaching studio art at Cal Arts, while enduring a crisis of faith in his own semi-abstracts. He took everything he’d ever made to a San Diego mortuary and cremated it, baked the ashes into cookies, stuffed them into a bronze urn shaped like a book, then engraved a plaque with the destroyed paintings’ birth and death dates and the recipe for the cookies. “It was a very public and symbolic act,” he said, “like announcing you’re going on a diet in order to stick to it.”

Letters Diorama of Jackson Pollock in his studio (c. 2000-2019) by Joe Fig
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Model-making artist Joe Fig has produced a remarkable book, Inside the Painter’s Studio, in which he visits and photographs the studios of dozens of well-known New York contemporary painters. He also records each artist’s answers to a number of set questions, many of which are practical ones concerning studio layout, painting processes, work hours and habits, clean-up times, unique tools, titling, the use of assistants, and advice for younger artists. His second-to-last question, “Do you have a motto or a creed that as an artist you live by?” picked up a range of answers, both predictable and insightful.

Letters Bella Plus Connectors in the Inside/Out Room, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Daniel Boud photo
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My friend Carla co-leads exhibition tours at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. She does it as part of Bella Plus Connect — a monthly community drop-in program for people with disability or access requirements. Art enthusiasts of all ages and abilities are invited to meet and connect with each other and artist educators to explore the galleries and develop their own art practices.

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