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Category Archives: Writing

Exercising Perception

 Your ability to draw what you see is limited by your ability to see.  Vision is not simply a mechanical process that is naturally perfect.  Seeing takes place more in the brain than in the eyes, and it can be transformed and expanded by serious practice, just like any other skill that involves the interaction [...]

Time Favors Craft Over Concept

This essay by Kiwi Art Prof Denis Dutton appeared today on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times.  It’s well worth a read: Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark Tank?

Body Electric: Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was born into the working class, and had to toil and struggle throughout his life.  During the dark and bloody years of the American Civil War he served as a nurse to wounded soldiers.  His poetry and his political activities got him fired from jobs on several occasions.  In spite of it all, [...]

Why Art Doesn’t Pay

Well of course, art pays if you’re Damien Hirst, and music plays if you’re Madonna, and acting pays if you’re Brad Pitt.  But all of the creative professions have the same system, in which a small number of stars become fabulously wealthy and famous, while the vast majority working in the field barely get by [...]

A Bolt of Clarity

I’ve recently discovered John Michael Greer’s blog, The Archdruid Report, and while I don’t generally do this kind of post, I simply have to share with my readers my appreciation of his well-written and clearly reasoned economic thought.  He sees the economy as an ecosystem, and shows that ecology and economics cannot be separated.  I [...]

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