On Renoir
At the end of September, Tom & I drove to Les Collettes, the estate where Pierre-Auguste Renoir lived for the last dozen or so years of his life. A 3-hour drive from our rented apartment in Arles, it is located up a narrow, winding road in the town of...
On Not Being an Artist
When I was in the 4th grade, on random – but mercifully infrequent – Friday afternoons, we would “have art.” Paper was distributed, crayons were exhumed from the bottom of desks, & an LP was put on the turntable. The mandate: Draw whatever the music, be it...
On Inspiration
The other evening – specifically, a gentle June evening blissfully free of wind & high humidity – Tom & I sat out on our patio, gazing at the sky & enjoying what the French call l’heure bleue, “the blue hour.” If you’ve ever wondered, this...
On Detours
Every now & then, as I’m leaving the gallery where I teach on Saturdays, I take a short detour downstairs to spend a few minutes in front of what I refer to as “my wall.” This is the spot where, at any given time over the past 10-plus years, a half-dozen or...
On Not Making Art
I once read a quote attributed to Pierre-Auguste Renoir that said something like, “I have painted every day of my life.” I remember feeling tremendously impressed by this statement but also vaguely disconcerted for it simply sets the creativity bar, the passion...
More on Following Your Nose
Have you ever felt compelled, for the flimsiest of reasons, to do something & then, having done it, realized your life was immeasurably enriched by it? That was precisely what happened last Sunday when Tom & I drove up to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see...
On Work & Play
Here’s something I’ve been puzzling over for the last 20-odd years: Why is it so very difficult for me to give myself permission to go into the studio to work on a project if it happens that the house hasn’t been cleaned in over a week or some other,...
On Lost Edges
I’ve always had a penchant for shadowy things. For example, I’m attracted to (some might say, addicted to) film noir & mystery books. I adore listening to old radio programs like Suspense & The Whistler. And, at this time of year in particular, I find...
On Learning & Teaching
As soon as I entered the classroom on my very first day of graduate school, the professor pointed out two columns on the blackboard, one labeled Student, the other Teacher. He then asked me to write a word under each heading that represented my...
On Being Part of the Whole
Tom & I just spent the better part of a Sunday at the Field Museum of Natural History, one of Chicago’s many world-class destinations. Although the Field is probably best known for being home to the T. rex Sue, we were not there to see her, although admittedly,...