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Category Archives: Others’ work

Painters of Light

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Thomas Kinkade, “Painter of Light (TM)” passed away earlier this month.  His psychedelically colorful fantasy landscapes are too sugary for my taste, but he’s a fascinating cultural figure of our time.  It strikes me that his technically accomplished, rather surrealistic style would have been embraced by the contemporary art world if he had presented it [...]

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Ritual of Enchantment: Human Clay

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

One of the most venerable functions of art is to transform the environment, to create a sacred space or a magical moment, to inspire the imagination or to open the mind to contemplate mysteries.  This may be the impulse behind the painted caves of the Ice Age, and it is why places to pray and [...]

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Collector of Souls: Alice Neel

Friday, March 30, 2012

  Alice Neel (1900-1984) is always described as an artist that was slow to find recognition.  It’s true, but I think it’s also true that her brilliance was of a kind that is only achieved through maturity and persistence.  Our culture likes to think that a genius is a genius, that they must be incandescent in [...]

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A Trio of Birthdays

Sunday, March 11, 2012

1. This week, on March 15, Drawing Life turns three years old. 2. Minerva Durham’s Spring Studio, New York’s busy basement of figure drawing and one of the forges of my creative life, is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this month. 3. On the 12th, my brother Frank Hatt is celebrating another one of those decade birthdays. [...]

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In the Flow

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

A drawing or painting is an object, an arrangement of marks on a surface, inert and mute.  So what do we mean when we speak of a picture having dynamism or tension, energy or lyricism?  There could be multiple factors.  Movement may be pictorially implied.  Shapes and colors may be arranged in ways that suggest [...]

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