Dear Artist, If your horizons are going cuckoo, if things don’t form up as well as they used to, or you’re having trouble finding your colours, it may mean the advance of painterly senility. Not fully reserved for the elderly,…
Dear Artist, Symphonies, movies, plays, novels, songs — all tend to have a climax. Life and love have climaxes. Climax is one of the essential life experiences. Without climax, nothing seems to get anywhere. Climax represents the successful completion of…
Dear Artist, Last Sunday I gave an artist’s talk. There was standing room only in the small museum where my retrospective exhibition is being held. Some people had to stand out in the hall where they couldn’t hear, so I’m…
Dear Artist, Yesterday, Cherie Hanson of Kelowna, B.C., Canada, wrote, “My work explores several directions at once. For me it is not a linear path, not a clearly designated roundabout with branches shooting off at well defined distances to clearly marked…
Dear Artist, When we first arrived on the Big Island we were greeted by some of the highest winds and roughest seas in several seasons. Veteran surfers were turned away by the lifeguards. Saffron finches huddled in low hedges behind…
Dear Artist, There was no use in arguing with the woman. She had asked me what I thought she should do next and now she was against my suggestion. It was she who had complained her work was dull. “Your…
Dear Artist, A Song for the Seventies was a 24 x 30 inch oil on canvas I painted in 1975. I had been to the High Arctic in the summer of ’74 and had taken some photos of a young…
Dear Artist, The Flynn effect is the year-on-year rise of IQ test scores. It was named after the New Zealand political scientist James R. Flynn. The average rate of rise is around three IQ points per decade, although it varies…
Dear Artist, As touched on in the clickback before last, Small Stuff — how people move around in galleries — contributes greatly to their success or failure. We have to differentiate between commercial galleries and public galleries, for each serves…
Dear Artist, If you were a brain surgeon or a jet pilot, you might not have a lot of historical precedent in your job description. I’m talking about stuff that might apply to high-tech cortex procedures or landing a plane…