2024-01-13 11:33
I
first painted the author Jeffrey Ford back in 2004. The portrait was
“constructed” from many sources, including some poorly lit
snapshots which I took in a pizzeria of the unsu… Read More
Blog Directory > Arts & Entertainment Blogs > From The Studio arts-and-entertainment Blog >
2023-09-16 08:26
Before
leaving his job, my father had become a bit dour and subdued, more
inwardly focused and less willing to engage actively with others. His
pre-retirement personality didn't emerge overn… Read More
2023-03-17 19:18
Little do they realize how ardently I look forward to those storms, when the wild waves will beat at my very door! … Read More
2022-12-03 14:10
Our personal histories are often composed of a long string of seemingly unexceptional events, but perhaps it is those barely memorable events that define our lives, confer significance to ou… Read More
2022-06-25 10:25
Ferdinand Hodler - Snow in the Engadine - 1907“The Old Fields”, written in 2012, is most likely my longest short story. Originally, it was even longer, but, upon finishing it, I… Read More
2022-04-30 10:15
“The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself. If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him… Read More
2021-12-11 11:57
Philip Guston - The Studio - 1969I was leafing through the December 2020 issue of ARTFORUMwhen I came across an article by Steve Locke which addressed the art of Philip Guston. In this… Read More
2021-07-17 10:54
As I advised in May's post, this new blog entry consists entirely of a piece of my recent fiction. Though I've produced many short stories since my childhood days, I've very rarely attempte… Read More
2021-05-29 10:00
Unless you are a CPA or a savant, I wouldn't expect you to know that this is my fiftieth blog entry... but it is. I started writing my blog, From the Studio, eight years ago. I suspect tha… Read More
2021-04-10 10:05
II looked out the passenger window barely conscious of the shabby businesses and rundown houses that bordered the service road of Sunrise Highway, a conduit that had been an inescapable and… Read More
2021-01-16 11:44
Thus far in my life, most of the people I’ve come across have been wearing clothes, so I guess you can say that I’m used to it. On the other hand, even though there is a l… Read More
2020-09-19 10:04
My FG-20I didn't own a camera until I was in my late twenties. Before then, I had no need for one. I guess my attitude was: I'm living life; there's no reason to document it. Of course, m… Read More
2020-06-27 10:27
This entry will be different. It's not going to be about Art, as nearly all of my entries are. It will be about a simple lantern.In late May, one of my sons was returning from a trip to th… Read More
2020-05-09 10:15
Irealized recently that most young people today may have no idea that Pablo Picasso's Guernicaresided in the United States for many years, hung, in fact, in New York's Museum of Modern Art f… Read More
2019-11-29 11:31
From my first exposure to his art, I’ve retained an undiminished interest in the paintings and prints of Edvard Munch. After reading a lot about his life and looking at many repr… Read More
2019-08-03 06:48
My youngest son and I recently returned from a trip to Ohiowhere we spent a week with my nephew Rich and his wife Sam on their farm. Our goal was to assist them in their work, perhaps… Read More
2019-06-08 09:53
“Works of art often last forever, or nearly so. But exhibitions themselves, especially gallery exhibitions, are like flowers; they bloom and then they die, then exist only as mem… Read More
2019-05-04 10:07
I looked up “showing” in the on-line Cambridge Dictionary, and one of its definitions was “an opportunity for the public to see something”. That seems pretty simple a… Read More
2019-01-26 10:33
At its best, life is completely unpr… Read More
2018-11-10 11:02
The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to “overcome” doubt. … Read More
2018-07-21 08:51
“There’s no retirement for an artist, it’s your way of living so there’s no end to it.” &nb&hell…Read More
2018-04-28 09:38
Georg Emanuel Opiz - Der Saufer - 1804Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve last posted a blog entry. If you follow my blog, you probably know that I retired at the end of last… Read More
2017-12-09 11:44
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." &nb&hell…Read More
2017-10-29 12:47
I don’t know if you saw that the American poet John Ashbery passed away at the age of ninety this past September. I took note of his passing not because I am familiar with his po… Read More
2017-08-05 11:27
I really don’t like award shows. And there are so many of them: the Oscars, the Grammys, the People’s Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, the Tonys, the Screen Actors Guild A… Read More
2017-05-28 09:12
There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.- Gustave FlaubertYou have to be pretty romantic to do what I do ... to succumb… Read More
2017-03-04 11:55
There are more fools in the world than there are people. … Read More
2016-12-10 14:53
It’s painful for me to admit this, but I must come clean and confess that I am a sentimental man. Yes, I pore over the same old family photos again and again, reliving the golden… Read More
2016-10-22 15:24
And who by fire, who by water,Who in the sunshine, who in the nighttime,Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,Who in your merry, merry month of May,Who by very slow decay,And who shall I s… Read More
2016-07-23 10:50
Sebastian Meschenmoser - Sumpf - 2005I came across the image above on a site that indiscriminately presents art, fine and commercial, in all media by artists both professional and amateur.&n&hell…Read More
2016-05-15 10:39
To turn, as swimmers into cleaness leaping, … Read More
2016-04-25 03:16
Memories are so elusive. Once I’d thought my memories had foundations of stone only to find later that my childhood understanding of the past was filtered through a distorting pr… Read More
2016-02-07 18:41
Artists have been making prints for centuries. Generally, printing is about replication. For someone living in the twenty first century, the idea of creating multiple identical c… Read More
2015-01-15 21:05
While still an undergraduate art student in college, I fell under the spell of the Austrian modernists active at the turn of the twentieth century, particularly Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele… Read More
2014-11-18 19:46
I turned 55 on my last birthday. Birthdays generally are not a big deal for me, at least in the sense that I don’t get anxious or depressed about growing a year older. Beli… Read More
2014-10-11 17:17
“All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.”- … Read More
2014-09-13 10:08
Gerard Wickham - Cat's Cradle - 2014Finishing a painting these days always generates conflicting emotions in me. Of course, there is a sense of satisfaction, relief that the project un… Read More
2014-08-02 14:17
A number of years ago, I brought an artist friend who was visiting the USA up to my studio to view my recent work, and he looked a long while at the oil painting set upon my easel, his brow… Read More
2014-06-07 11:08
When my office moved up to the 50’s about two decades ago, it occurred to me that, besides my paying more for lunch, the new location afforded me access to the hub of galleries cluster… Read More
2014-05-03 00:25
My childhood elementary school had determined that students should learn to play a real instrument starting in the Fourth Grade. I don’t recall being asked if I wanted to play an… Read More
2013-11-09 03:03
Kunisada - Scenes from Kabuki Plays - 1856Mea culpa! A few weeks ago, a friend brought to my attention that he had attempted to comment on my blog but wasn't permitted to. Nothin… Read More
2013-10-13 19:01
In my last entry on Seminal Works, I ended my discussion with a look at First Light, a painting completed in 1990 after a period of indecision during which I determined in what manner I woul… Read More
2013-09-13 17:22
You may have noticed that I tend to use the word “approach” in instances when “style” would be expected. When discussing the making of art, “style”… Read More
2013-09-02 14:15
In grad school, I had a close friend, Yiorgos Katsagelos, who came from Greece to the USA to study photography. He was an extremely talented photographer which was evidenced by the qua… Read More
2013-08-02 22:58
After writing my entry on self- portraits, I thought it might be interesting to look at a few self-portraits of a different variety, photographs of artists at work. Now, of course, I r… Read More
2013-07-14 10:31
When I was an undergraduate art student at Stony Brook, I had developed a “style” of painting, one that I naively thought would carry me through life, that was founded on my deep… Read More
2013-06-28 04:24
I came across the following quote while researching my previous entry which concerned Ferdinand Hodler and the Symbolist movement:“Hodler’s portraits, on the otherhand, are commi… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
You reach a certain vintage to find your peers lamenting the lack of good music these days and waxing nostalgic about the incredible songs of their youth. “Good music”, of… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
I work near St. Peter’s Church at the CiticorpCenter located in Midtown Manhattan and often look in on art shows that the church hosts in two spaces that are reserved for exhibitions… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
When I moved north to the HudsonValley, I experienced something that I had not before: continuous snow cover for months at a time. In fact, commonly, snowfall is so regular and tempera… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
In my last entry addressing the work of Antonio López-García, I observed how the “realist” label is haphazardly applied to artists with very diverse aims and techni… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
I was thrilled to learn a few months ago that Scandinavia House would be hosting an exhibition of the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershøi, one of my favorite painters whose works are rare… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
While in my middle twenties, I went to a party in an apartment building located in one of the better areas of Manhattan. I knew a couple of the folk who would be there and just tagged… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
In an earlier entry, I introduced a new painting, Cat’s Cradle, and addressed the challenge that representing a very actively patterned quilt as a backdrop to my two figures posed for… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
The other day I was talking with a friend at work when he informed me that last year he purchased a snow blower. He admitted that being a city dweller he only had about forty feet of s… Read More
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