Dear Artist, It’s warm and muggy beside this froggy pond. I’m the shiny guy wearing the Deep Forest Off. Nearby, an Oregon towhee rummages in the undergrowth. In the distance, a barred owl is being harassed by resident robins. With…
Dear Artist, An elite art instructor has grown disillusioned with teaching. When asked if she could identify gifted students, she replied that talent was often lacking but audacity was in great supply. “Audacity” she said, “will only get you so…
Dear Artist, Yesterday, Amanda Jackson of Bahrain wrote, “Lively greys! It’s a breakthrough. My work was over-coloured and sometimes in a trite way. I was working ‘en grisaille’ but lately I’ve actually started to see the world in paint —…
Dear Artist, While browsing calls to entry recently, I came across an exhibition aimed at artists over 60. The gallery’s mission, said the call, was “to create a dialogue with the arts community supporting our belief that older, lesser-known artists…
Dear Artist, Back in the good old days, a select few youth were chosen to work in the studios of active and proven masters. After a few years of grinding pigments and other grunt work, they may or may not…
Dear Artist, My Dad had a theory about how to sustain and elongate periods of productivity and happiness in his studio. He said it had less to do with planning and was more aligned with what he called, “intuition zones.”…
Dear Artist, Frank Partnoy in his book, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay, tells us that procrastination is a winning formula. The idea that procrastination is evil came along with the Protestant work ethic and the Puritanical era, he…
Dear Artist, A new study at the University of Graz in Austria is attempting to bust culture-spanning myths about creativity. Professor of psychology Mathias Benedek and his team first surveyed people from diverse backgrounds to find out what they believed…
Dear Artist, Recent activities have helped with an understanding of what goes on in the art-making brain. The encouragement of Zen-like lapses can be useful both in the studio and the great outdoors. We start with the understanding that a…
Dear Artist, Denise Dupre of Port Moody, B.C., wrote, “I began in the arts around 1997 by taking evening art classes. I loved reconnecting with my artistic abilities and have moved along steadily with my work. In the early days…