Dear Artist, While boating near our local tidal bars we watch flocks of sandpipers flying and moving together like giant amoebas. Changing, reforming, glittering as they make their turns — gray, flashing silver, then black against the blue as they…
Dear Artist, In the last letter I happened to mention a system I call “Paint by seeing paint.” In three days, six hundred artists have written to ask what I was talking about. There’s definitely something wild about email, isn’t…
Dear Artist, Yesterday, a woman I know fairly well phoned and asked if I might do a smiling portrait of her recently deceased husband. She would supply snapshots from when they were on trips. She had the idea that their…
Dear Artist, At the easel yesterday I was listening to a stockbroker on the telephone headset at the same time as my assistant Carol Ann was holding some cheques for me to sign. Just then one of the city fathers…
Dear Artist, Chuck and Geraldine purchased a 24″x 30″ painting of mine in 1973. Chuck, an artist in wood, made a beautiful mahogany box for it and shipped it by Greyhound to John and Annie, Geraldine’s father and stepmother, as…
Dear Artist, Yesterday, Ana Raquel wrote, “I grew up in an environment that did not stimulate creative development. Nevertheless, in adolescence I was a prolific writer. But suddenly I stopped. I remember thinking that what I wrote wasn’t any good,…
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, Every time one of my letters disappears from this box, mail comes back with topic suggestions. I really appreciate these ideas. One of the most frequently requested is “procrastination” — a subject of which I’m proud to be…
Dear Artist, A recent letter from Sandra Chantry explained, “My project is to paint my way around the world, thus combining my interests in observation, people watching, and travel. Perhaps I should add exploring! So far I’ve managed St Petersburg…
Dear Artist, My last letter brought a volume of correspondence regarding George Leonard’s book Mastery. Quite a few artists are apparently reading it right now. In it he gives five “master keys” to the achieving of mastery — Instruction, Practice,…