• Home
  • /
  • Living The Dream
  • Livin’ the Dream

    When you introduce  yourself as an artist, people often remark  in a well-intentioned way how you are “livin’ the dream,” because if you do what you love (everyone assumes people in the arts are doing what they love), you’ll never work a day in your life. That’s the dream: love, productivity, appreciation, but no work. There’s a […]

    Read More
  • Art and Seeing Things

    I gave a talk on “Art and Seeing Things” to a large group of Grade 4 students. There’s even a video.

    Read More
  • An Artist’s Life, Part V

    I love painting but I hate that making a living from it means I have to push the edges of my own sanity before I get to the “living” part. Living requires money. I’m a Libra, which apparently means I’m all about something called “balance.” In fact, I’m so airy-logical that I don’t believe in crazy […]

    Read More
  • An Artist’s Life, Part IV

    So, can you really make a living at it? I get asked this a lot. There’s a perception that unless you’re supporting yourself entirely on art, you’re not professional. That’s not true. Then there’s that old perception that all artists must starve for their art, and unfortunately there is some truth to that. The word […]

    Read More
  • How Do You Measure Success?

    So I was thinking about measurement. In the latter phase of my corporate life, we used a lot of Six Sigma philosophy. It’s a business management strategy that reduces (“sums”) people, things, and processes to numbers and stats in order to measure productivity, effectiveness, and — ultimately — perfection. See, as long as you’re dealing […]

    Read More
  • An Artist’s Life, Part III

    Like any job, being an artist has its share of procrastination. My work pattern was always predictable: stress goes up, I produce… stress goes down, I screw around. This pattern hasn’t varied with my career change. I’ll confess that I spent a few days in the studio where I didn’t do anything especially productive. Moreover, […]

    Read More
  • An Artist’s Life, Part II

    So my first month as a full-time artist seemed to go well despite my inability to fulfill my socializing quota. I sold a few pieces plus some image reproduction rights, had a show up in Kamloops, met a bunch of artists, and was feeling pretty good about everything. I’m up! Then I looked at the […]

    Read More
  • Charm School

    I really hate the socializing aspect of art life. I suck at mixing. I am just not outgoing enough, weird enough, and ultimately not interesting enough to stand out in (or better yet, blend in with) a crowd of artists. Went to some opening show tonight. I walked in and immediately felt overdressed and uncool […]

    Read More
  • An Artist’s Life, Part I

    Well, I have not been at work (*corporate work) for five weeks and today I was surprised to find that I disliked not being around people. There are times when I’m positively Sartre (“Hell is other people”) and then there are days like today when I am alone and ruminant and not feeling the urge […]

    Read More