Dear Artist, A recent study has determined that status-quo bias – the type of cognitive bias that keeps people preferring that things stay the same so as to reduce uncertainty – makes it harder to encourage or even recognize creativity.…
Dear Artist, On Easter Sunday, Pete Rose (not The Pete Rose) came into my studio and looked at the 36″ x 30″ on my easel. “Where’s that?” he asked. “Nowhere,” I said, “It’s a veduta ideata.” Puzzlement flickered across his…
Dear Artist, While waiting for my annual mammogram yesterday, I thumbed through a back issue of The New Yorker magazine and found Ariel Levy’s essay on the comparative religion of parenting. According to one sect, babies are like plants; they…
Dear Artist, Yesterday, Jamillah Ausby of Brooklyn, New York wrote, “My husband, the abstract artist Ellsworth Ausby, passed on March 6th. I have a lot of his art which I would love to sell. He wanted exhibitions in Europe, Africa,…
Dear Artist, “There are some artists that want to slow down the world and feel that we need to have the time to be still,” said American photographer Spencer Tunick. “The still image does not give us all the answers.…
Dear Artist, “Nothing is selling,” writes Ron Sanders of Fort Wayne, Indiana. “Last year I had my worst sales in years. What am I doing wrong?” Ron is an accomplished painter. Ron gave me a list of what he thought…
Dear Artist, Creativity researchers at the UCLA are continuing their decades-long studies of the biological origins of creativity. By testing what they call the “Big C” – exceptionally creative visual artists and scientists – scholars are inching closer to discovering…
Dear Artist, The making of art can be divided into three main camps: Subject driven, style driven and idea driven. Subject matter is a secure camp. There can also be ever-widening sorties to find subjects that provide further interest and…
Dear Artist, While visiting with a curator of Canadian art yesterday, he told me about his most recent project, involving the search and discovery of overlooked artists from smaller municipalities. He observed that some artists who haven’t worked in urban…
