Ways to Stay Motivated

One of the best things I do for myself as an artist is give myself permission to be awful, even at things I’ve done well in the past. I mean really awful, sometimes in full public view, not just in my studio.   I work at an art gallery, and have lots of conversations with… read more

It’s always painful when someone doesn’t like your work, or doesn’t respond in a positive way, or doesn’t respond at all. It happens all the time though. It took me many years to begin to differentiate between someone looking for a way in to what I do, and someone who just wants to stop me… read more

I love the feeling making art gave me as a kid! I was mesmerized from the first moment I saw the paint colors and smelled the linseed oil. I loved setting up the wooden easel and the white painting panel, choosing my brushes, and figuring out what to paint.         Need Versus… read more

About ten years ago I returned to oil painting after decades working on paper. I had built a career working abstractly, making prints and collages, but I hadn’t answered the original question I had as a child—how do da Vinci, Raphael, and Manet make the world look like that? Never answering this question seemed like a… read more

There’s a yellow house on Union Street in Brooklyn that I pass by every day on the way to my studio. I love this house! So cheery with its yellow steps, so inviting—and so odd mixed in with all the brownstones.   A Great Teacher Can Make All the Difference I took oil painting lessons… read more