Studio Reflections

I am an artist who, for forty years Has stood at the lake edge Throwing stones in the lake, Sometimes, very faintly, I hear a splash. – Maxwell Bates We produce so many pieces of art over so many years and, occasionally, we hear the splash. Most importantly, we hear the splash “very faintly”. After…

“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.” – Henri Matisse For the past two or three weeks I’ve been frustrated with my monoprint making. Lots of interesting starts that went nowhere. Either I couldn’t figure out how to finish them, or I tried and ruined them. I felt like I was regressing…

“Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it.” – Tallulah Bankhead As an artist, I frequently have to make conscious decisions about the artistic style in which I’m working. Do I attempt to create a “look” that is recognizable as me, or should I continually try to explore new styles and…

Having finished Alan Watts’ wonderful chapter on Zen and the arts in The Way of Zen, I wanted to share a couple of other thoughts. We’ve talked here before about the need to develop technique to the point of mastery so that you can then abandon, or go beyond, that technique. Watts says, “The brush…

At the excellent suggestion of Danu, I am reading a chapter in Alan Watts’ classic “The Way of Zen” entitled “Zen in the Arts”. Watts talks about how in the West artists can have an almost adversarial relationship with their materials. He quotes Malraux who said we strive to “conquer” our medium, much as we’d…

I’m re-reading an interesting book that many of you artists may have read – Art & Fear: Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It’s a classic survival guide for artists of all backgrounds – if you haven’t read it I highly recommend it. My experience of reading…

“The creative act is not formed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.” – Marcel Duchamp This quote I ran across reminded me of the recent discussion we’ve had here about…

I’m back from a week in British Columbia helping my college freshman son start his new life in a university – looking forward to getting back to some art-making and art-discussing! I’ve thought a lot about what the process of making art consists of for me. There seems to be a line that is either…

Why do we value an original piece of art over an imitation? These days, with improvements in reproduction techniques and technology, the reproduction may be as good as (or even better than) the original. I know, I own a fine art printing studio, and it is true that not only can the reproduction look every…

“In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting.” – Thomas Eakins I found this quote as I was contemplating simplicity and immediately thought of our friend, Miki. She is that rare union of mathematical and artistic passion in the same person. So this post is dedicated to her……