Dear Artist, Last month my daughter, Sara, was invited to take part in “The Big Egg Hunt.” Two hundred and eighty-seven plain white fiberglass eggs, about two and a half feet high, were to be re-imagined as individual artists saw…
Dear Artist, The New York Hip Hop collective Wu-Tang Clan has recently announced they’ll be selling just one single copy of their forthcoming album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin. Visual artists are familiar with the single-copy concept. The economics of…
Dear Artist, This morning, while I was slurping a cup of joe at the kitchen window, a childhood friend appeared at the top of the driveway. Jane in black leggings and I in bedhead, we caught eyes. She began to…
Dear Artist, At the risk of once more dividing the world into two main kinds of people, there are two main kinds of people: those who amuse themselves, and those who require amusement from others. Artists seem to be pretty…
Dear Artist, The id is defined as “inherited instinctive impulses of the individual as part of the unconscious.” It’s also generally associated with sex drive. What got me going on this was the observation by friends that I had what…
Dear Artist, While cleaning out one of our storage areas yesterday, we found a really old paintbox. It turned out to be one of my first: gray-painted, heavy and substantial, built for the road by my dad. Opening it up…
Dear Artist, Catherine Campbell writes, “I have a varnish dilemma. I’ve almost finished a commissioned acrylic painting that I will be bringing back from Mexico to Canada in a few weeks. I wanted to put a coat of gloss medium over…
Dear Artist, A few days ago Pomegranate Publishers of Portland, Oregon put out their long awaited J. Fenwick Lansdowne, a lush coffee table book illustrating the bird art of my friend Fen. I had the privilege of writing the section on…
Dear Artist, At the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia a room is hung salon-style with 19th Century British and European paintings. The display is immense, covering two facing walls hung floor-to-ceiling with the works of Delacroix, Ingres, Daumier,…
Dear Artist, A dreamer’s in my closet — he can be heard in the middle of the night making delicate tears in the 140lb Arches Cold Press watercolour block and moving jellybeans out of my tote bag. That little mouse…