Category: Essay
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On Practice and Warmups
I have recently begun studying piano again in earnest. I have played off and on since I was a kid, but I never really developed any particular aptitude because I never liked to practice. Drawing on the other hand was never a chore. I could draw for hours and never feel like it was any…
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An Afternoon with the Greeks
Last Sunday, I got the rare privilege of going to an art museum by myself. I spent a couple of hours checking out the closing day of the Portland Art Museum’s show, ‘The Body Beautiful‘. It is always a bit of a quandary when ‘headliner’ art exhibits such as this come to town. They are usually packed with people elbow-to-elbow, the exhibition space…
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Construction vs Representation
At this point, I’ve probably spent more time studying anatomy than most Doctors. But you definitely don’t want me performing any surgery on you. Anatomy for figurative artists is very much vocation-specific. We focus on the gross anatomy: skeletal system and external muscles. We are much more interested in function and form, rather than the…
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What is Art?
Defining what ‘art’ is has always been an exercise in futility, but people will continue to do so as it is human nature to categorize and define. It is my belief that the physical presence of art is an artifact of the process. It is the creation and interpretation of art that has value. The…
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Back to Basics
Most of my studio time I spend working from reference images. This is unfortunate, since the work that I create based on reference images is generally more static than when I am working from a model. For many years, I would choose not to work at all if I couldn’t work from a model. Over…
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Introduction
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget that errand.” — Woodrow Wilson. It certainly would…
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Art Education
When I went to college, I had idealistic dreams of mentorship that would take me into an apprenticeship beginning a career in art. What I found instead was a environment choked with academic politics, ivory tower idealism that sneered at practical business skills, and professors who claimed their favorites and ignored the rest. It is…