Dear Artist, You don’t need an economics degree to understand the pricing strategies of art galleries. One of my former dealers — no longer in the business — noticed that a very high percentage of gallery visitors just came in…
Dear Artist, Innovation is a branch of invention that makes changes in existing systems. These changes need not be dramatic. They may not even be seen as improvements. In the art game they need only to be different. Yesterday, while…
Dear Artist, After stumbling around in this inbox for half a day, I realize there are two main kinds of artists. Those who think it’s all about technique, methodology and process, and those who think all you have to do…
Dear Artist, After my last letter about Dewain Boyce’s analysis of Cezanne’s paintings, we were inundated with letters from artists who “didn’t get it.” Dewain was widely condemned as theoretical and arbitrary in his overlays of cones, cylinders and ovals.…
Dear Artist, I’m one of those painters who is forever fascinated with the work of Paul Cezanne. I’ve tracked down his locations around Mont Sainte-Victoire and peered out at the village of Aix through the wavy glass of his studio…
Dear Artist, Today the main thoroughfare of Baie-Saint-Paul is closed to vehicular traffic. Thousands of visitors dine on outdoor sushi, sugar pie and onion soup served up in plastic cups. At least a hundred painters operate from homemade paintboxes, massive…
Dear Artist, Bruno Cote is one of the more successful painters living in Baie-Saint-Paul — in all of Canada for that matter. The first thing you notice on entering his studio is the cleanliness and lack of clutter. Further, his…
Dear Artist, I’m laptopping you from under a red sugar maple beside an old habitant cottage in Charlevoix County, Quebec. Artists of all stripes have come here for generations to paint and fall in love with the beauty and charm.…
Dear Artist, My friend Ralph, who doesn’t mind my talking about this, is way out of shape. His personal coach, Alberto, is a ladder-chested ex-lightweight boxer with blinding white teeth and lots of hair. Alberto comes over to Ralph’s twice…
Dear Artist, “Just chip away everything that doesn’t look like a horse,” said the equestrian sculptor as he contemplated a block of marble. The power of visualization — to see the horse within the raw media — is basic to…