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…
Dear Artist, Yesterday, Carol Currie wrote, “My greatest dilemma is whether I should pursue studies at university. I am a self-taught artist and doing well on my own. My next step as an artist is to work on enough pieces…
Dear Artist, “Never underestimate the power of the altered state,” said my Dad. While he avoided religion, he did enjoy cracking the door to his studio after a dinner party to catch a glimpse of his devotion through the ecstatic…
Dear Artist, Professor Gerard Puccio, who chairs the Department for Creativity and Change Leadership at SUNY Buffalo State College, has developed a creativity training program called the Thinking Skills Model. His seven-step system is designed to challenge the notion that…
Dear Artist, Recently, Mark Winkelstein wrote, “A friend passed away and I have been trying to assist his family in the best means of selling some of his originals. He is the fairly significant Hungarian-Canadian painter Gyula (Julius) Marosán (1915-2003).…